Food Should Not Be Wasted
Food Should Not Be Wasted
April 2, 2024
Not everything we’re taught as children is easy to learn or sticks with us for life. If it were, we wouldn’t have reached the year 2023 facing a worsening problem of food waste — an issue with a double impact: environmental and social.
Without downplaying a reality that concerns us all — like much of what happens around us and is within our power to change — it is clear that we’ve arrived in the 21st century burdened by a contradiction that makes no sense, especially when 735 million people around the world suffer from hunger. That’s 122 million more than in 2019. These figures give tangible weight to that famous line from our mothers: “With all the children going hungry and you’re leaving food on your plate.”
Food waste is a serious social issue. With the amount of food wasted, we could feed the entire global population until 2050 — and feed those who suffer from daily hunger on this planet up to seven times. But this silent catastrophe is also an environmental issue: food waste is responsible for 10% of global CO₂ emissions — almost double the emissions produced by all the cars in the US and Europe combined over the course of a year.
It’s as dramatic as it is absurd — and as difficult to reverse. That’s why food waste has become a key target (Goal 3) within Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12: Responsible Production and Consumption.
What are we doing at ILUNION Hotels to help solve this?
To begin with, we’ve adopted a Food Waste Policy. We recognise that in the hotel sector, the most common causes of food waste stem from poor planning, procurement management, handling, storage conditions, and the behaviour of both staff and guests. Our strategy therefore analyses and optimises all processes, focusing on prevention and proper management to save as much food as possible. But ILUNION Hotels’ Food Waste Policy is more than just a declaration of intent. Our company is defined by its ability to turn words into action, to genuinely contribute to solving major issues — never just ticking boxes or meeting minimum standards.
To illustrate this further: in 2022, also in partnership with Too Good To Go, we saved 7,661 food packs, preventing 19.15 tonnes of CO₂ emissions, once again equivalent to charging 3.4 million mobile phones.
Through Too Good To Go, hotels offer app users the chance to purchase discounted surprise packs every day containing a wide variety of leftover food from the breakfast buffet. These surprise packs are valued at €12 worth of products and can be purchased on the popular app for just €3.99, a saving of almost 70%. This way, all those uneaten foods are given a second life so they can be put to good use.
And this is just one of the many actions we’re taking… but there is still a long road ahead.
If you’d like to walk it with us, we’d be delighted.
