“Back of house” – focused study on food waste in fine dining: the case of Delish restaurants

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to identify the key determinants of back-of-house-based food waste in food service outlets. This case study focuses on Delish restaurants, a well-known restaurant chain in Canada, and aims to provide a clear understanding of food service procurement, kitchen practices, cost management, risk mitigation, menu design and technical literacy needs in hospitality. Some recommendations for future studies are also provided. Design/methodology/approach – The authors chose an exploratory case study design to guide our investigation on restaurants and food waste, based on Yin’s (1994) argument that case studies are the preferred strategy when the “why” questions is being posed and when the focus is on a modern occurrence within a real-life context. Such a design is particularly appropriate for understanding the details and complexity of a phenomenon and its design (Stake, 1995). In this study, research data were collected through multiple points. A semi-structured questionnaire was designed and adopted to collect primary data. The objective of the empirical segment is not to test the applicability of the existing approaches, but rather to study conceptual nuances related to the presented model. A survey study was focused on formal interviews onsite, in two different food service facilities (Restaurant A and B). Findings – When considering food procurement, supplier relationships were found to not be significant for food waste prevention. Company-wide agreements with specific suppliers prevented individual chefs from creating alterations in their ordering to prevent waste. Order shorting was a somewhat common occurrence. However, most employees did not identify portion size as a large driver of waste. This conclusion conflicts somewhat with studies in this area (Kantor et al., 1997). If there was waste on a plate, it is much more likely to be the starches, which are low-cost items as opposed to high-cost proteins. Research limitations/implications – This research has its limitations, which present opportunities for future research. First, this case study is based on two case studies which have their weaknesses, especially in the reliability of data collection. In future, even though both restaurants had access to an earlier version of this case, a more structured analysis with performance indicators related to food waste would contribute to the internal validity of the study. The external validity of the proposed back-of-house-ba