I would say to any publican that is thinking of doing this that it is definitely worth it, whether you’re a large food-led pub or a small one. This trial really helps you identify areas that can improve your business. It really opened my eyes.
Trevor Roberts, General Manager, The Airport pub, Manchester
By business for business
‘Your Business is Food; don’t throw it away’ is a new campaign helping businesses in the hospitality & food service and manufacturing sectors to save money and boost profits by throwing away less food.
The campaign has been developed by WRAP in collaboration with the hospitality & food service sector, for the benefit of the whole sector. It builds on previous initiatives including FoodSave London and the Hospitality & Food Service Agreement. Influential organisations including the British Hospitality Association, the British Beer and Pub Association, the Sustainable Restaurant Association and the Soil Association have been instrumental in ensuring that ‘Your Business is Food’ resonates with their members.
Seeing the true cost of waste
The ‘Your Business is Food’ starter pack includes simple-to-use tools and techniques to help businesses track, cost and take action to reduce their food waste. A simple calculator, developed with Manchester Metropolitan University, has enabled businesses such as the Ship Inn, Barrow-in-Furness, to discover that food waste cost the business more than £6,000 per year. As a result, the Ship Inn has been able to reduce its total waste by a massive 72%.
The savings you make over a year, the improved experience of customers and better understanding and skills of kitchen staff really make this worth doing.
Licensee, the Ship Inn, near Barrow in Furness, Cumbria.
Read our range of business case studies here
Taking action
Courtauld 2025 signatories tailor the free ‘Your Business is Food’ resources to fit the needs of their stakeholders, build customised web pages, and badge the materials with their own logos. A campaign guide with template tweets, emails and other support helps partners get the right message to their members, and case studies help to make the business case.
New support for manufacturers
Building on the model developed for the hospitality and food service sector campaign, we are developing a new version of Your Business is Food for the UK food manufacturing sector. It isn’t just food, but energy, water and staff time that’s going to waste. These can be worth five to 20 times more than the cost of disposal.
‘Your Business is Food’ partners
The ‘Your Business is Food’ campaigns have been developed with the active input of Courtauld 2025 engagement signatories. For the hospitality and food service sector these include:
- British Beer and Pub Association.
- British Hospitality Association.
- Chartered Institute of Environmental Health Practitioners.
- FoodSave London.
- LIFE (financial instrument of the European Community).
- Love Food Hate Waste New South Wales.
- Manchester Metropolitan University.
- Plan Zheroes.
- Royal Academy of Culinary Arts.
- The University Caterers Organisation.
- Unilever Food Solutions.
- The Soil Association.
- The Sustainable Restaurant Association.
- TRiFOCAL.
Thanks also to the many hospitality and food service businesses who have adopted the ‘Your Business is Food’ principles and practices.
For the campaign in manufacturing, we have been working with the Food and Drink Federation, with input from other engagement signatories including Zero Waste Scotland, to ensure the campaign is tailored to the needs of manufacturers.