Food waste is food intended for human consumption that is thrown away at any point in the chain. In Spain, Law 7/2022 requires restaurants to take measures to prevent it.
Food waste (also called food loss) covers all food, or parts of food, originally intended for human consumption that is discarded, lost, spoiled or eaten by pests at any stage of the food chain. In restaurants, waste happens at many points: goods-in (product that arrives in poor condition or is rejected), storage (expiry, poor storage, incorrect stock rotation), preparation (trimming and cutting losses higher than necessary, failed preparations), service (returned dishes, uneaten buffets, oversized portions the guest doesn't finish) and after service (leftovers that are not reused). According to the FAO, roughly a third of the food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted worldwide, and hospitality is one of the sectors with the greatest impact. In Spain, Law 7/2022 on Waste and Contaminated Soils introduced, for the first time, specific obligations for hospitality businesses on preventing food waste, later developed by regional regulations and still awaiting specific implementing regulations.
The main obligations include: having a documented waste prevention plan, offering guests the option of taking their leftovers home (the well-known "doggy bag" or "gourmet bag"), prioritising the donation of food to food banks or social organisations before it is destroyed, and keeping records of the quantities wasted. Non-compliance can lead to fines ranging from €2,001 for minor infringements to more than €500,000 for very serious ones, as well as reputational damage at a time when consumers increasingly value sustainability. Beyond legal compliance, reducing food waste has a direct impact on profitability: every kilo of food thrown away is money lost — money that was paid to the supplier and spent storing and processing food that in the end generated no revenue.
Waste rate = (Total weight of food discarded / Total weight of food purchased) × 100
The food waste rate is calculated by dividing the total weight of food discarded (for any reason: expiry, preparation, uneaten dishes, etc.) by the total weight of food purchased in the same period, multiplied by 100. If in a month you buy 2,000 kg of food and discard 180 kg (including unavoidable prep losses and plate waste), your waste rate is (180 / 2,000) × 100 = 9%. The aim is to minimise this percentage, especially in the avoidable categories: expired product, returned dishes, oversized portions. A more precise version separates unavoidable waste (skins, bones, inedible parts) from avoidable waste (good product thrown away because of poor management).
An efficient restaurant may have unavoidable waste of 8–12% (depending on the type of cuisine and products) but should aim for avoidable waste below 2–3%. To comply with Law 7/2022, some restaurants also measure waste in monetary terms: (Cost of food discarded / Total purchase cost) × 100, which makes the direct financial impact of waste visible.
Your restaurant buys 1,800 kg of product a month at a cost of €12,600. You introduce a waste log for a month and find: 95 kg of prep waste (skins, bones, trimmings) — unavoidable, 5.3%; 35 kg of product that expired before use — avoidable, 1.9%; 28 kg of dishes returned or left unfinished by guests — partly avoidable, 1.6%; 22 kg of failed or burnt preparations — avoidable, 1.2%. Total: 180 kg (10%). But the critical figure is the 85 kg of avoidable waste (4.7%), which represents around €600 of product wasted every month, €7,200 a year.
You take action: better FIFO rotation to cut expiry (target: from 35 kg down to 10 kg), kitchen training to reduce mistakes (from 22 kg to 8 kg), and adjusted portions plus a "half portion" option to reduce plate waste (from 28 kg to 15 kg). You also introduce the doggy bag service required by Law 7/2022. After 3 months, avoidable waste is down to 33 kg (1.8%), saving €370 a month. You also donate Sunday's buffet surplus to a local food bank, following the law's waste hierarchy and improving your brand image.
Food waste matters for three converging reasons: legal, financial and reputational. From a legal point of view, Law 7/2022 and the forthcoming Food Loss and Waste Prevention Law (going through parliament) set specific obligations for hospitality: documented prevention plans, a mandatory offer to take leftovers home, prioritising donation over destruction, and records of quantities wasted. Spain's regions are developing complementary regulations, and inspections will start checking compliance. Fines can be significant, but the biggest risk for many restaurants is not being ready when the rules are fully enforced.
From a financial point of view, food waste is literally money in the bin: every euro of product thrown away is a euro that brings no return. An average restaurant may be throwing away the equivalent of 3–5% of its purchases in avoidable waste — thousands of euros a year going straight to losses. Reducing waste directly improves actual food cost and therefore the business's margin. From a reputational point of view, consumers increasingly value sustainability: 73% of Spaniards say environmental commitment influences their choice of restaurant (according to industry studies).
Communicating anti-waste measures (donations, using up surplus, well-designed doggy bags) is a real competitive advantage. Conversely, making the news for throwing food away while families go hungry can destroy a venue's reputation in hours.
Zindra lets you record and categorise food waste by type and cause, producing reports that meet the documentation requirements of Law 7/2022. The system identifies patterns (which products are wasted most, at which point in the chain) and suggests corrective actions. Integration with inventory and recipe costing also lets you compare actual waste with theoretical losses to spot avoidable inefficiencies.
Tools and content to go deeper into this concept.
Food cost is the percentage of a dish's selling price that goes on the cost of its ingredients. It is the single most important indicator of how profitable your menu is.
HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, known in Spain as APPCC) is a mandatory preventive system in hospitality that identifies and controls food safety risks to make sure the food you serve is safe.
Wastage is the product lost between buying a raw ingredient and the customer finally eating it. It covers natural losses, processing losses and service losses.
Batch cooking is the technique of preparing large quantities of base preparations in one go so they can be used across several dishes and services. It maximises kitchen efficiency and cuts labour costs.
Portion control is the practice of standardising the exact quantity of each ingredient in a dish. Strict portion control can cut food cost by 3-5% without customers noticing any difference.
FIFO (First In, First Out) and LIFO (Last In, First Out) are stock rotation methods. In hospitality, FIFO is compulsory: what comes in first goes out first, keeping produce fresh and reducing waste.
Every hospitality term with formulas, examples and benchmarks in a handy PDF.
Try Zindra free and keep food cost, staff, inventory and much more under control from a single platform.