For Chef Brad Wise, serving a fish does not end with its best-known cuts.
After those portions have been set aside, flesh scraped from the carcass becomes tartare for a happy hour menu. The carcass is smoked over a wood fire and used for broth. Collars are saved for a grilled appetizer.
He also uses skins from the back of pork chops to replace some of the butter used to finish pasta. The skins are simmered until tender, blended into a paste and refrigerated overnight.
At San Diego-based Trust Restaurant Group, whose concepts include Rare Society, Trust and Fort Oak, Wise looks for ways to keep using an ingredient before deciding what must be discarded. Beef fat becomes cooking fat for french fries. Meat trimmings become burgers. Bones become broth.
“It's everything these days. I think now more than ever, right, especially due to cost of goods,” said Wise, the group's owner-operator.
For Wise, that attention to a zero-waste food philosophy continues after the food leaves the kitchen. In fact, he designs the return path at most of his restaurants so chefs can see the plates bussers carry back. If the same food repeatedly comes back uneaten, Wise wants to understand why. Is the seasoning off? Is the portion too large? Does the dish need to change? Or is something else wrong?
“If someone's not eating it on their plate consistently, it's a problem,” Wise said.
Making good use of ingredients and understanding what guests want to eat are connected parts of reducing food waste. Both depend on restaurant teams sharing what they learn as food moves from preparation to service and back to the dish station.
The magnitude of the challenge reaches well beyond any one kitchen, though.
ReFED, a national nonprofit focused on food-waste solutions, valued surplus food from the U.S. foodservice sector at $156 billion in 2024, equivalent to 11 percent of foodservice sales. That surplus amounted to the equivalent of 20.7 billion meals unsold or uneaten. The category includes food and inedible parts that are donated, repurposed, recycled or discarded.
“Culinary professionals put extraordinary time, resources and passion into the menu items they craft to fill bellies, not landfills,” said Sara Burnett, ReFED's executive director.
“In restaurants, nearly 70 percent of the food waste that occurs is plate waste, food that is served but never consumed,” Burnett added.
ReFED received a 2026 James Beard Impact Award for its data-driven food-waste work. Its Insights Engine helps restaurant and foodservice operators understand food waste and evaluate solutions.
Burnett's emphasis on what goes uneaten brings the question back to the meal itself: How can restaurants make better use of food while giving guests a meal they value and enjoy?
Taking A Holistic Approach
Anne McBride, vice president of impact at the James Beard Foundation, describes food waste as a starting point for restaurants considering sustainability more broadly. Making the most of ingredients also helps them manage rising expenses.
“Right now, we've seen increases in absolutely every aspect of restaurant operations, so being able to maximize what you’re spending your money on is really critical,” McBride said.
At MACHETE and YOKAI in Greensboro, North Carolina, Chef Kevin Cottrell finds uses that connect one dish to another. Fennel tops become a garnish for seafood; duck-wing braising liquid becomes a sauce for pasta. When the kitchen has an excess of produce, his team turns to fermentation, pickling or dehydration. Each week, a different chef prepares a staff meal using ingredients the kitchen has in abundance. MACHETE was a 2022 James Beard Foundation “Best New Restaurant” semifinalist and YOKAI is a self-proclaimed love letter to Japanese izakaya culture.
“We are big on cross-utilizing ingredients,” Cottrell said.
Wise noted that many ideas across his restaurants come from his staff, with a technique developed in one restaurant potentially spreading to others. His zero-waste philosophy relies on people who keep finding possibilities in the ingredients around them.
That work can cross the kitchen door. McBride encourages conversations between culinary and bar teams about what each is using and what might otherwise be thrown away. Citrus rind can become marmalade, and zest can be frozen for desserts. Ingredients that do not belong in one dish may have a place in a syrup or another preparation.
“Having conversations around what everyone is doing is really critical to create this kind of holistic approach through the restaurant, where it's not just the kitchen that's responsible—but it is really a concern and a creative opportunity for everybody involved,” McBride said.
Menu planning can also help create those opportunities. Neelu Gil, chief operating officer of Curry Pizza House, which has 40 U.S. locations, recommends using ingredients across multiple dishes to keep them moving through inventory.
Brooks Kirchheimer, co-founder of Utah-based Hill Top Hospitality—which operates Urban Hill, Hearth and Hill and Hill's Kitchen—also sees a balance to maintain: Repeating ingredients too often can leave guests seeing too little variety. At Urban Hill, whole sablefish supplies both an entree and a fish-collar appetizer, allowing the kitchen to use more of the fish in distinct dishes.
Chef Devon Quinn—partner at Chicago’s Eden, a sustainability-focused restaurant, and chief culinary officer of The Paramount Group, which includes Eden, Paramount Events and FuelGood—said working with local farmers and growing produce in Eden's greenhouse sometimes means the ingredient comes first and the dish follows.
“When you know the work that went into growing something, you think differently about throwing it away,” Quinn said.
Preparing For What Guests Will Actually Eat
Using more of an ingredient addresses one source of waste. Preparing more food than guests will eat creates another.
At Freddy J's Bar & Kitchen in Mays Landing, N.J., owner Grant Kneble began examining what was physically ending up in the trash after reviewing recipes and food costs failed to explain all of his losses. The investigation changed how much the kitchen cooked at once.
Instead of preparing large batches ahead of service, the Freddy J’s team began cooking smaller quantities, closer to the tickets coming in, and using sales information to guide preparation.
“The fryer runs a little more often now, but the food comes out fresher and a lot less ends up in the trash,” Kneble said. “The guest gets a better plate and we stop paying for food nobody eats.”
For Quinn, forecasting becomes especially important when Paramount Group’s Paramount Events prepares food for hundreds or thousands of people. The guest count is only part of the calculation. The kind of event, service style and how people eat in that setting all influence what is needed.
“We always want guests to feel like there is plenty of food, but there is a difference between abundance and unnecessary excess,” Quinn said.
“Cooking for 1,000 people doesn’t mean taking a recipe for 10 and multiplying everything by 100,” he said.
Michelle Hacker, director of restaurants, bars and events at the Kimpton La Peer Hotel in West Hollywood, Calif., recommends adjusting prep to the day's expected business rather than making the same quantities every day. Lance Reynolds, director of restaurant operations consulting at Rosemont, Ill.-based foodservice distributor US Foods, cautions against buying extra to secure a case discount without a plan to use it.
Fresh ingredients behind the bar deserve the same attention.
“Too many teams default to prepping for battle rather than anticipating actual volume,” said Miranda Escalante, who specializes in beverage development and front-of-house operations with Pilot Light Consulting, a strategy studio serving hospitality ventures, social enterprises and consumer packaged goods businesses.
Escalante recommends realistic prep quantities for syrups and fresh juice, adjusted as traffic changes. If surplus remains, kitchen and pastry teams may be able to use it. Those conversations can give ingredients another purpose before their limited shelf life runs out.
Learning from the Plate
The food returning from the dining room offers another way to assess how well a restaurant's plans match its guests' appetites.
McBride said chefs in the James Beard Foundation's network are mindful of ingredients and costs. Once food reaches the table, restaurants also have to consider how guests judge the value of a meal.
“People want to make sure that they're getting their money's worth for their food,” McBride said. “So, even though that has evolved a lot in the last 20 years, that's still definitely something that chefs have to factor in, so there’s a lot of waste that happens at the table when it comes to food.”
She also sees opportunities to help diners understand food waste while keeping the experience welcoming.
“Educating the consumer is really key,” McBride said, “but it’s also about being realistic and the fact that when you go out to dinner, you don't necessarily want a lecture about anything, right? So, there is a gentle education.”
Burnett sees portion choice as one way to meet those expectations while reducing what goes uneaten. Restaurants can offer sharing sizes or half portions, or reconsider a side that is consistently discarded. In fact, a 2026 analysis from ReFED and Datassential suggests restaurants offering customizable portions can gain a competitive edge by responding to diners’ preferences, including those of Gen Z consumers and people taking GLP-1 medications.
“Whether it’s half-portions, smaller plates, build-your-own meals or smaller portions with free refills, customers are empowered with choice, not limited by it,” Burnett said.
Listening to guests can help restaurants make adjustments, too.
Kneble said Freddy J's was using about twice the fries its recipes called for. Examining what was being discarded helped the team identify the need for measured portions for sides and baskets.
“Narrow it down item by item, come up with a theory, and then ask your guests,” Kneble said. “They'll tell you if a portion is too big, a dish isn't what they expected, or something just isn't landing.”
Wise's attention to returning plates serves a similar purpose. A dish repeatedly left unfinished merits another look, including whether its portion makes sense. McBride recommends involving servers, who can tell the kitchen when guests enjoy a dish but consistently leave a particular component.
For Kirchheimer, that exchange depends on relationships between the dining room and kitchen. Information about uneaten food often does not reach the chefs, he said.
“If you’re looking for insights, one of the best resources is the dishwasher, who sees what is coming back on plates each day,” Burnett said.
Only 20 percent of the foodservice establishments ReFED has spoken with formally track front-of-house waste, Burnett said, noting the work involved in tracking it. Periodic audits can help identify what is coming back and guide changes to menus, portions or takeout options.
“Plate waste is feedback,” Quinn noted. “If the same thing keeps coming back to the kitchen, pay attention to it. Maybe the portion is too large. Maybe guests aren’t responding to a component the way you expected. Maybe the menu description is setting the wrong expectation. As chefs, we can get attached to an idea, but ultimately you have to watch what the guest is telling you.”
Giving the Team A Voice
Recognizing those patterns takes more than instructions to waste less. The people handling the food need a way to share what they see and help decide what changes. Burnett said data suggests about 40 percent of foodservice businesses surveyed do not have waste-reduction goals.
Justin Lewis, who specializes in marketing and back-of-house operations with Pilot Light Consulting, recommends starting with an issue someone on the team already wants to solve: excessive fish trim, perhaps, or an overcrowded walk-in.
“The people doing this work every day already know where the waste lives,” Lewis said. “Your job is to give them the room to fix it.”
McBride recommends spending a week examining inventory, prep waste and dining-room returns, with an interested staff member helping track it. Hacker suggests measuring losses for 30 days, then focusing on the most frequent and costly problems. Lewis advises starting with a manageable task.
“Pick one or two items,” Lewis said. “Put a bin and a clipboard next to them, weigh what gets tossed, and write down why. Then have a real conversation about it. One small win builds the momentum for the next one. That's how change sticks.”
Laila Lakhani-Ali, executive vice president of commercial strategy and sustainability at Russellville, Ark.-based organics recycler Denali, recommends distinguishing prep scraps, spoilage, overproduction and plate leftovers. She also advises considering ingredient value alongside weight: The largest pile may not represent the largest financial loss.
“With restaurants already operating on thin margins, every discarded ingredient also carries the cost of purchasing, storage, preparation and disposal,” Lakhani-Ali said.
Lewis recommends giving an interested employee real ownership of the effort and sharing results at pre-shift. Kneble, whose waste log records who was involved, makes a distinction about its purpose: “That last part isn't about blame. It's so you can coach and spot patterns.”
Finding A Use for What Remains
Prevention cannot eliminate every scrap or every instance of surplus. Restaurants still need a plan for food they cannot serve.
“For me, the first goal is always prevention,” Quinn said. “If it can safely be used somewhere else, use it. If edible food can be donated safely, that should be explored. Then compost what truly cannot be used.”
Burnett said ReFED promotes the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Wasted Food Scale, which prioritizes using edible surplus to feed people, including through repurposing or donation, before recycling inedible parts.
Lakhani-Ali recommends establishing donation arrangements that meet recipients' requirements and evaluating any potential reuse under the restaurant's food-safety procedures. For materials going to an organics recycler, she advises asking what is accepted, how often it will be collected, what the service costs and where the material goes.
At ReRun Restaurants in the Charleston, S.C. area, employees at Leon's Oyster Shop, Little Jack's Tavern and Melfi's separate prep scraps and plate leftovers into Denali collection bins. According to Lakhani-Ali, the group reports diverting approximately two tons of food to composting each month.
“This indicates successful landfill diversion, while tracking prevention separately will show that less food is going unused in the first place,” Lakhani-Ali said.
The Paramount Group reported diverting 73,300 pounds through its composting partnership from January through August 2026. Collection buckets are placed throughout its facilities and brought to events. The group has also begun using finished compost from its collection partner in garden beds in its on-site greenhouse.
Making composting work can be difficult, however. Wise said heat, odors and nearby tenants in mixed-use buildings limit composting during warmer months. McBride hears concerns from restaurants about pickup costs and storing food scraps between collections. She suggests neighboring restaurants participate together to help reduce collection costs and recommends that cities involve restaurants when designing composting programs.
“It is important for local governments—when they are thinking about launching these kind of programs—to involve restaurants in the decision-making so that they can really understand the venture,” McBride said.
The practical work of reducing waste also extends to what accompanies a meal, whether served on-site or delivered. Gil recommends including only the packaging, sauces, napkins and utensils customers need. Hacker points to unnecessary water use and equipment left running. Those resources belong in the wider picture of what it takes to feed a guest.
Quinn, who studied biology before becoming a chef, traces that investment back beyond the restaurant.
“There is so much that goes into producing an ingredient before it ever reaches our kitchen, including land, water, labor, transportation and time,” Quinn said. “When we waste food, we’re wasting all of that too.”
Revisiting the Decisions
Taken together, these experts’ insights suggest food waste often begins with decisions made before a plate even reaches the table: buying more than the kitchen can use, preparing more than guests order or serving portions and sides they consistently leave unfinished.
Opportunities to prevent those losses can also go unnoticed when the people buying, preparing, serving and clearing the food do not share what they see.
The chefs and operators interviewed are clearly finding ways to reduce waste by revisiting key food-related decisions—and listening to their teams and guests.
“Composting is important, but throwing food into a compost bin doesn’t mean we should stop asking why it became waste in the first place,” Quinn said.