Food waste in hospitality is often treated as an operational problem, with questions such as ‘How much is being discarded?’, ‘Where does it happen?’ and ‘How much does it cost?’ These are important questions, and operations plays an important role, but perhaps the main question we should be asking is ‘Where do tomorrow’s hospitality professionals learn their attitudes towards food?’

Hospitality education is where future chefs and hospitality professionals develop essential technical skills, but it is also the foundation for the habits and standards they will carry into their careers. If we want the industry to rethink its relationship with food, education is where that change needs to begin.

Research by Ne’ma recorded an average of 121g of food waste per diner across 13 UAE hotels, comprising 44% of pre-consumer waste and 66% of post-consumer waste. This demonstrates that waste occurs both before food reaches the guest and after service, underpinning the importance of addressing the full food lifecycle. The UAE has set an ambitious goal of reducing food loss and waste by 50% by 2030, aiming to enhance its food safety and security in the process. Achieving that target will depend as much on people and behaviour as it does on technology and process.

Food waste should not be addressed only when food reaches the bin but should be considered from the moment an ingredient is purchased through storage, preparation, cooking, service and surplus management. At Abu Dhabi Hospitality Academy – Les Roches, we are putting this into practice by experimenting with several service and portion-control strategies, including smaller plates, smaller tongs, removing trays and introducing live cooking stations during lunch. These interventions are designed to explore whether changes in the way food is presented and served can influence consumption and waste.

This thinking underpins the Hospitality Education Food Waste Flow Framework (HEFFF), which maps six connected stages of the educational food lifecycle. We are driving this forward at the Academy with our Practical Arts & Events Manager, Chef Leonardo Roman, and in collaboration with Maitha Warshaw, Executive Chef at Capital Catering, ADNEC. It is designed to bring food-waste prevention into the everyday activities of a training kitchen, and centres on a straightforward mindset: prevention first, reuse next.

1. Purchase and receiving: where prevention begins

Purchase and receiving is where prevention begins. Students can compare what was ordered with what was actually used, calculate expected yields and portions, and consider how ingredients might be shared between classes. Receiving also provides lessons in food safety, specifications, temperature control and shelf life.

2. Storage and distribution: learning stewardship

Storage and distribution, including labelling, stock rotation and expiry monitoring may sound routine, but they are professional behaviours. When a lesson changes or a class is cancelled, students can also be challenged to consider whether ingredients can be reallocated, preserved or used elsewhere rather than discarded.

3. Practical sessions: making waste visible

During practical sessions, proposed measures include weighing trimmings and checking yields. Students can distinguish between avoidable and unavoidable waste, while exploring whether suitable ingredients can be repurposed into stocks, sauces or garnishes.

4. Culinary practice: turning mistakes into learning

Overcooked proteins, broken sauces and failed dishes are inevitable parts of culinary education. Instructor checkpoints can help identify problems earlier, while reflection on what went wrong can turn mistakes into learning rather than simply sending food to the bin.

5. Food service: aligning production with demand

Food service connects production with consumption. Smaller presentation portions, controlled serving sizes, small-batch replenishment and live cooking can all be explored as ways of aligning production more closely with actual demand. Measuring what comes back from service can then provide a feedback loop for future decisions.

6. Surplus management: what happens next?

Finally, surplus management asks what happens after food has been prepared and served. Where food-safety requirements allow, suitable surplus can be reused, redirected or repurposed. Organic waste can also be separated for appropriate recovery streams.

The important point is that these are not six isolated sustainability lessons, but rather opportunities to develop better professional judgement.

Technology at the forefront

Technology can tell us what is being wasted, but education must help students understand why. Our latest technology is Chef’s Eye, a food-waste measurement system that combines digital scales, touchscreen recording and photographs to track discarded food. Its dashboard captures quantities, costs and waste patterns, creating data that can inform future purchasing, production and portioning decisions. Using this data in practical sessions helps students connect individual decision-making with broader operational consequences, turning waste into information that can improve the next session.

The goal is not to create a generation of hospitality professionals who simply know that food waste is undesirable. It is to develop professionals who instinctively ask better questions as essential to professional competence as flavour, technique and presentation.

The food waste problem is not located at one point in the kitchen. It is the cumulative result of decisions made throughout the food’s journey from purchase to plate to surplus. If we want hospitality to move from managing food waste to preventing it, we need to start before the waste exists, and that means starting in the training kitchen.

Professor Edmund Goh, PhD is Assistant Dean, Research and Innovation, at Abu Dhabi Hospitality Academy – Les Roches