Mumbai chefs share how they skip food waste, give tips for a sustainable kitchen

Image for representational purpose only. Photo: istock

Less is more
Raveena Taurani, chef, founder and CEO at Yogisattva
We do small-batch production to avoid wastage. Every morning, mise en place is conducted, and say the dish is a vegan Thai quinoa rice, we cut vegetables only required for two to three portions at a time. Only when the entire prep is exhausted, it is restocked. We also use similar vegetables in most dishes, leading to lesser storage and more usage of each vegetable. If we have an excess batch of food/dessert, we offer complimentary dishes to our guests or send it as delivery favours. In case of a special ingredient-driven or a limited-edition walk-in menu [when it's often not possible to have an exact headcount], the first weekend of the launch is always the busiest, so we prepare extra portions. After that, we resume the model of preparing limited portions per dish. Right now, my primary challenge has been nitrile gloves. Each teammate goes through two sets per day, and there's no recycling possible as nitrile has a very short shelf life. We've explored so many options but haven't found any sustainable, workable ones. The waste disheartens me, but every restaurant has to have a high safety protocol now, amid the pandemic.

Chef Raveena Taurani, Founder, Yogisattva (Plant-Based Culinary Academy & Cafe). Photo Courtesy: Raveena Taurani

As far as wet waste is concerned, we compost it; we also give the veggie and fruit peels to cows, coffee granules go into our planters, and leftover almond pulp goes into granola. We segregate all the plastic and glass waste from our dry food raw material, and give it to recycling organisations such as 5Recycle. You have to be proactive as an owner if you want to reduce wastage; sustainability is not just a brand goal for us, but a core value.

Pro tip: Save your vegetable scraps through the week to make a nourishing vegetable stock that can be used in soups, to make quinoa, curries and more.

Rachi Gupta - executive chef and founder of The Bread Bar. Photo Courtesy: Rachi Gupta

Cracker of an idea
Rachi Gupta, founder and chef, The Bread Bar
Being a small artisanal bakery, we forecast the walk-ins and deliveries as per previous weeks' statistics. We know our weekdays are slower, so we bake less and usually sell out. On weekends, we bake more. On Sundays, we usually offer half-off on walk-ins post 7 pm, if we have leftovers. With the breads that get leftover in the rare case, we use them to make bread crumbs, and bread and butter puddings. Sourdough bread has a high amount of discard. We came up with sourdough crackers made with the discard after feeding the starter. When and if we have cooked leftovers, we tend to distribute it among the staff members.

Pro tip: We often use our kitchen scraps for skin care. For instance, combine overripe avocado with a bit of honey that can be used on the face or hair. Mixing used coffee grounds with a bit of sugar and olive oil makes for an invigorating body scrub. You can also apply cooled, used tea bags or excess cucumber slices to your eyes to reduce puffiness.

Chef Victor Manuel Murguia Mancilla, executive chef at Bastian, Mumbai. Photo: Victor Manuel Murguia Mancilla

Respect the ingredients
Chef Victor Manuel Murguia Mancilla, executive chef at Bastian
In order to reduce our waste, it's important that we respect the ingredients, whether they are fruits, vegetables, any source of animal protein, grains, dairy, or something else. We follow proper FIFO control - a term frequently used in many forms of organisational management and is especially relevant to industries where stock is perishable or has a stipulated shelf-life. Simply put, it means first in, first out. This, in our case, indicates that we keep checking the expiry date on packaged or fresh ingredients; it is the rule to first use the ones that came first into the restaurant. This helps avoid spoilage and most importantly, maintain freshness and quality. The pandemic has made us more conscious; perhaps the ground rule that we have all learnt to work on now, more than ever, is the value of being able to get things on time and fresh.

For our Sunday Brunch menu, which is currently one of our most unique and sought-after weekly offerings, we follow the same management principles in the backend: checking the quality of the goods received, storing them properly, and producing according to needs, based on data on reservations.

As far as cooked leftovers are concerned, they're packed for the guests to take home. In such a scenario, as an F&B venue, it becomes our responsibility to create and offer minimum-waste and environment-friendly packaging.

Probably the easiest way to cut down on waste is to use minimum and compact packaging material for delivery orders. Several venues and delivery platforms have made tissues and disposable cutlery an option, which may seem like a small step but on the whole ends up saving thousands of tissues, forks, knives and spoons that would otherwise end up in the trash without so much as being used. The limitations of the pandemic made it hard for us to procure the exact quality of packaging material that we'd have preferred to use for our delivery platforms, although we did try our best to incorporate the methods we could to be more conscious of our contribution to the environment.

Pro tip: Keep an eye on the quantity of food while cooking. There are also many ways to recycle dinner leftovers; for the morning breakfast, make a veg omelette with leftover veggies, or make a vegetable soup, or wraps.

Rahul Bajaj, owner and conceptualiser at Out Of the Blue. Photo Courtesy: Rahul Bajaj

Innovation matters
Rahul Bajaj, owner and conceptualiser, Out of The Blue
We've been getting ISO 9001 certification since 2005-06, which indicates high standards in hygiene, health, food wastage, storage and discarding protocols. Every part of a fruit or vegetable, including the skin and step, has nutrients. In our kitchen, we ensure every part of the ingredient is used. Apart from working with our own inventory software, temperature-controlled storage facilities, vacuum sealing machines that help in increasing shelf life, and conducting mise en place based on consumption pattern, we do a lot of à la minute - we don't prepare in advance - to avoid wastage. We keep reinventing our storage and back-end techniques to suit the times. We're also the first stand-alone restaurant in the [suburbs] in this part of the city to have our own biogas plant, which is where our wet waste goes. We also make our own eco-friendly sprays for plants with kitchen waste. For brunches, we prepare for a live kitchen counter to reduce waste. As a pet-friendly restaurant, in case of leftovers, we help feed the strays in and around the area.

Pro tip: The stem and skin of veggies are nutritious. Don't throw away your cauliflower stems, for instance; make a broth out of it. Or with the stem of a tulsi plant, make a nice salsa.