Collaboration in Food Waste Prevention - the case of Mauritius

One area where collaboration is hardly existing is on the topic of food waste Prevention and Management. Even within the same hotel group, there is a lack of coordination (drive?) that prevent best practices from being adopted broadly.

Since Food Waste represents on average ~50% of a hotel total waste, and knowing how poorly waste in disposed of/managed  in most places, targetting this issue with a collaborative lense seems of the most overlooked issue of all. To put is simply, hotels should strive to become ZERO FOOD WASTE TO LANDFILL players!

How? By following the food waste pyramid/hierarchy, which recommends to: a) Prevent food waste, b) Redistribute what can't be sold for human consumption, c) Transform when possible the unsafe remainings as animal/insect feed, and when these options have been used, d) find way to transform organic into compost or energy.

--> In this field, COLLABORATION PAYS OF!

Have a look at the Zero Food Waste to Landfill Mauritius project: https://www.thepledgeonfoodwaste.org/zero-food-waste-mauritius . 10 beneficiaries (8 hotels and 2 canteens), developped by LightBlue, subsidized by the government (HRDC), using The PLEDGE on Food Waste certification framework, made possible thanks to match-makers Living Labs Federations, and implemented in partnership with local food rescue organisation FoodWise.

Results? 62,147 KG of food not wasted, 209K USD in savings for adopters, 96 persons trained and 155 tons of CO2 equivalent not emitted thanks to this project.