Step 1.1: Avoid food waste
Avoiding food waste can help businesses and organisations to save time, money and resources.
The first step to reducing food waste is to get creative with leftover ingredients. Consider menu specials that use leftover produce from other dishes to maximise value for money. Ensure that ingredients are appropriately stored and labelled to extend their lifespan.
Step 1.2: Quantify food waste
Once food waste has been minimised by creating new dishes with surplus ingredients, consider quantifying how much food is being wasted as spoilage, kitchen prep waste and plate waste.
The easiest way to measure wasted food is by doing a week-long bin audit to determine the quantity and type of food being thrown out. Green Industries SA has developed a food waste review tool to support businesses auditing food wastage. This resource is catered to the hospitality sector but is applicable for any business or organisation that produces food waste.
Additional resources to use in conjunction with the food waste review tool:
Business Sustainability Program
Grant funding available through GISA’s Business Sustainability Program can provide additional support to businesses, not-for-profits, industry associations and business groups to deep-dive into food waste causes and identify solutions.
Program staff have supported several associations and sectors through the grant programs, including the Australian Hotels Association (SA), who developed a Sustainability Guide for the South Australian Hospitality Industry with funding from GISA’s Lead-Educate-Assist-Promote grants. Pubs, bars, hotels, or restaurants wanting to improve sustainability and waste management can download the Sustainability Guide for the South Australian Hospitality Industry.
The team has also supported South Australian Independent Retailers to develop a Food Waste and Recycling Strategy to assist the organisation in improving their waste management practices and circularity outcomes.
Find out more about GISA’s Business Sustainability Program.
End Food Waste Australia sector action plans
Supported by industry and governments, End Food Waste Australia have prepared a range of sector-specific action plans to tackle food waste in businesses, including for food service, bakery and horticulture.
Views the sector action plans to explore research and advice on how to reduce food waste across seven sectors of the food supply chain.
Australian Food Pact
Through the Australian Food Pact, food waste and sustainability experts at End Food Waste Australia work with businesses to develop action plans to reduce food waste in their operations.
Find out more about joining the Australian Food Pact.
Step 2: Donate edible food
In business, some quality, surplus food production is inevitable. Food growers, manufacturers and caterers produce some food that for commercial reasons cannot be sold such as food that doesn’t meet specifications, is over-produced, or is surplus to catering requirements.
In South Australia, OzHarvest, Secondbite and Foodbank distribute rescued food to charities and organisations supporting those in need. Each organisation has a different collection and distribution model. Visit their websites or get in contact with a representative to see which donation model best matches the surplus food your business has available.
Step 3: Consider animal feedstock options
Material fed to animals generally comes from consistent, less mixed sources such as food manufacturing and business sites. These waste streams can be fed to animals to reduce the quantities of feed purchased by farmers. Feeding animals appropriate organic materials avoids landfill fees and minimises environmental impacts by reducing amount of animal feed produced.
These are often informal arrangements between primary producers and businesses with transport costs and quantities negotiated as required. It is critical that food waste sent for animal feed is uncontaminated and any feeding of material to animals must conform to the Livestock Act 1997. This arrangement is often undertaken outside any formal contract and the business or primary producer may alter the arrangement to suit their needs with short notice and without consequence.
Step 4: Dispose of food waste responsibly
Food waste and certified compostable serviceware should be disposed of in a food waste and organics bin to be sent for composting at an industrial composting facility.
Adding a food waste service is an option for most businesses, particularly in metropolitan areas. Some businesses with small volumes of waste may be eligible to use council-provided services, while businesses with greater volumes of waste will require a contracted food waste collection service.
The cost of waste and recycling services is often overlooked, and many businesses don’t regularly review services available and pricing. Changes can be made to existing contracts and services to reduce costs and improve recycling rates. This can often be achieved by monitoring quantities and reducing bin sizes or frequencies so that bins are only collected when full.
The Business Sustainability Program can offer support for this process and has also developed a procurement and contracts toolkit to provide a clear overview for businesses to undertake a competitive tender process. The tender response schedule is designed for use in competitive tender processes for waste and recycling collection services. It encourages standardised responses that can be easily compared to help determine the waste management provider best suited to your needs and budget.
Collection systems and infrastructure
In 2009–10, more than 17,000 households in South Australia (metropolitan and regional) participated in a pilot program to divert food organics for collection for commercial composting. At the time, it was the largest pilot of its type in Australia. The program was designed to identify which factors contribute most to the diversion of household food waste from landfill.
The pilot provided evidence that enabled the development of state government incentive programs to support the roll-out of best practice food waste collection systems. This program has led to 80% of South Australian households having access to a kerbside organics bin accepting food waste and now operates as the Green Industries SA Kerbside Food Waste Systems grant program. Additional support is provided to councils through Council Modernisation Grants to introduce innovative measures aimed at improving operational efficiencies in waste management.
The SA Better Practice Guide: Sustainable Kerbside Services was released in 2023 and provides practical information and tools to SA councils on introducing sustainable kerbside services to households.
The service provides residents with:
- weekly food and garden organics (FOGO)
- fortnightly comingled recycling
- fortnightly general waste
- choice and flexibility options to comply with relevant legislation.
To support household food waste diversion, regulations came into effect in South Australia in September 2024 requiring produce bags to be certified compostable to Australian Standards, improving householders’ access to certified compostable bags suitable to be used as a kitchen caddy liner. Not only does this remove the single-use nature of the bags, trials have shown providing the bags through retail points increases the amount of food waste that is diverted by up to 117%.
Continued investment in infrastructure is necessary to ensure processing operations have capacity, as more food waste is diverted from kerbside and commercial collections. Funding for contaminant-removal technology to meet market demand and quality standards for compost products is also required.
GISA’s Circular Business and Market Development grant program has supported upscaling of innovative processing techniques for organic materials, and through the Circular Infrastructure grant program, GISA has provided funding for organics processing, sorting and decontamination infrastructure to support high value end products.
Co-funding was provided by GISA and the federal Department for Climate Change, Environment, Energy and Water for the Food Waste for Healthy Soils Fund. Five South Australian projects were awarded funding through this program, aimed to increase the quantity and quality of recycled organics derived products being applied to agricultural land.
As a result of sustained investment in collection systems, processing capability, market development and education, South Australia leads the nation in the diversion of organics and has developed a demand-driven composting sector. Diverting more than 83% of organics away from landfill and circulating these nutrients back into soils delivers significant environmental and economic benefits to the state, as outlined in the SA Organics Sector Analysis.
The application of composts by agricultural and horticultural businesses improves the structure and micro biota of soils, effectively regenerating the health of soil. This results in a reduced volume of synthetic fertiliser and water inputs, helps soils sequester greater levels of carbon, and increases farm productivity which extends the positive economic impact derived from use of recycled organic products.
For more information on reducing food waste, contact us.
