Help for hospitality sector to unlock food waste opportunities

A new free online platform has launched at London Climate Action Week this week, designed to help hospitality, restaurant, and catering professionals unlock one of the sector’s biggest opportunities: reducing food waste.

Reducing food waste can lower costs, improve efficiency, strengthen resilience, and reduce emissions, yet practical guidance is often difficult to find and apply. The Food Waste Decelerator has been created to help close that gap.

The free platform combines AI powered search across hundreds of expert resources, practical case studies, a directory of technology solutions and a global community of hospitality professionals – all available in more than 50 languages.  

The hospitality and food service sector wastes an estimated 290 million tons of food each year and while the environmental impact is huge, so too are the opportunities. Every tonne of food wasted represents ingredients purchased, paid labour and avoidable pressure on already stretched business resources.  

The Food Waste Decelerator has been designed to bring trusted knowledge, real-world examples and technology solutions together in one searchable place, helping hospitality businesses find and apply proven approaches quickly across the full range of hospitality operations from finance director, the operations team and the front-line chefs.  

WRAP, the global environmental action NGO at the heart of the growing Food Pact Network – spanning six continents – will be looking for opportunities to scale use of the tool through this network. 

Estelle Herszenhorn, director of Food System Transformation WRAP said, “Preventing food waste is one of the biggest overlooked opportunities for hospitality businesses, people and the planet. We know the actions that work – but what is key is enabling these actions at scale, in fast-paced environments. We support the Food Waste Decelerator because it puts credible and impactful tools and examples in the hands of those that can take the action needed.”

Karen Pflug, chief sustainability officer, Ingka Group, said, “Ingka was among the first major companies to reach SDG Target 12.3, halving our food waste from production already in 2022. By the end of FY25, we reached a 60.5% reduction compared to the 2017 baseline, equivalent to 47.5 million meals. With the Food Waste Decelerator, we want to make the practical knowledge that got us there available to the whole sector to enable more of us to act faster on solutions.”  

Coline Pont, chief sustainability officer, Accor, said, “With more than 5,800 hotels and 10,000 food and beverage venues, we strongly believe our sector has much to gain from acting together on food waste. Supporting the Food Waste Decelerator as main sponsor means making practical, tested guidance freely available to hospitality operators worldwide. It is exactly the kind of shared resource our industry needs to move faster.”

Peter Schestraete, cofounder Ubuntoo, said, “The practical knowledge to act on food waste already exists — but too often is hidden across reports, tools and case studies. Combining our technology and expert network with WRAP’s content leadership makes that knowledge faster to find, easier to apply and grounded in trusted sources.”

The Food Waste Decelerator was initiated by Ingka Group, building on its experience as one of the first major companies to achieve SDG Target 12.3 by halving food waste from production. It was built on Ubuntoo’s technology platform to combine curated content, case studies and quality assurance from WRAP with AI-powered search and practical tools designed for hospitality operators.

The Food Waste Decelerator contributes to the work of WRI’s Champions 12.3, the global coalition committed to halving food loss and waste by 2030 

Accor’s support as main sponsor is helping make the platform freely available to the wider hospitality sector. The Food Waste Decelerator is available at foodwastedecelerator.org. 

Professionals in hospitality, restaurants and catering can register, explore curated resources, browse solutions and recommend content for inclusion.  

Example case study – the saving possible by action

The Radisson Blu Bengaluru Outer Ring Road reduced its food waste by 40% within two weeks as part of a WRAP pilot. This delivered estimated annual savings of 89 tons of food, 269 tons of CO₂e and US$ $410,000 in costs.

By identifying food preparation, staff canteen waste, and banquet overproduction as key hotspots, and by introducing a series of targeted changes to operations, the hotel shows how measurement and practical interventions can quickly translate into significant business and environmental benefits.