When it comes to Zero Food Waste and Thai food, there are many things interesting in the Thai traditional way of practice in our food culture, which is ‘respect’ and valuable uses of ingredients. However we often find restaurant entrepreneurs have to #leak the money out with some unfortunate procedures. Today, Chef Job – Natthini Plonthong, a Thai food expert from Makro Horeca Academy, will share us how to manage Zero Food Waste in Thai way, along with various observations and tips that restaurant owners can review and apply it to control of their business #not to spill money on food waste which we would like to confirm that it will definitely be useful for your restaurant!!
“If we look back, we will find that Thai people in ancient times efficiently used ingredients such as meat whether it is pork or chicken etc. We eat and use most of the ingredient parts from nose to tail. Even some organs that people in some countries do not eat, Thai people still eat them, including various vegetables which not only peel away. Thai people really respect and know the value of the ingredients. The new generation from genZ and the new generation of entrepreneurs began to be alert of food waste and the environment as well.”
Respect in the value of the ingredients in Thai way
Eat the food respectfully, eat all the parts from nose to tail, including intestines.
Be aware of how to preserve food not to be leftovers and preserve it for a long time such as, salted beef, salted pork, sour pork, fermented fish, sausage and pickle vegetables etc. Using the leftover food for processing into another kind of food such as using leftover old rice to make rice crackers, etc.
We might not have zero food waste With the usage of vegetable or meat scraps to make a western style sauce or soup. In addition to preserve food to eat for a long time, Thai people still have some menus that are from the wisdom of ancient people, which is caused by the need not to waste food and use it to deal with leftover food instead of letting it waste”
Gaeng Hoe
It is a wisdom of dealing with food leftovers of the northern Thai people in ancient times that caused by mixing various remaining curries together (the word “Hoe” means mix) and add something more such as glass noodles, asparagus and seasoning a little more flavoured by adding kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass to create this kind of curry.
Gaend Som is another kind of Thai dish that can handle food waste as well which also can be adapted to many ingredients, even watermelon rind, cantaloupe shell or the size of the melon shell also can be used too.
“From the experience I met with many Thai entrepreneurs, it was found that many entrepreneurs still have not enough systematic management, causing a loss of ingredients starting from shopping at the market, such as buying meat or seafood some restaurants have bought an ingredients and put them behind the truck in hot weather without storing them in a cool box, which will cause the ingredients lose their freshness or shorten their life. Even storing the ingredients in the refrigerator, many restaurants are stacked up to fill the cabinet until no air circulation or crushing on top of each other can cause vegetables to be rotten. Until the process of preparing ingredients, which may cause waste such as, Cutting meat or fish fillets
That cuts too much of the meat. That’s like a stupid fee you have to pay for handling bad and unsystematic stuff, which of these things we can fix by taking care of how employees work in this section and manage the working system not to cause a waste.”
How to solve:
Manage the work system to maintain the quality and freshness of the ingredients, From purchasing, transport to storage not let a low quality waste turn into food waste which causes money to leak out of the pocket.
strict and train employees to have a work ethic in taking care of the ingredients in both the storage process and the process of preparing ingredients.
“ At some point, I’d like entrepreneurs to try asking themselves what is really necessary for example, an old food garden business that often have a dish head decorated which we will find that 50% of customer do not eat and some restaurants are even using a piece of withered vegetables which makes the restaurant image more bad. Imagine if you had to decorate every dish and serve like this everyday in a month, how much of your money is leaking from this point? Is it really necessary? Is it what your customers really value? Honestly, are you throwing away your money every day?”
How to solve:
If you still have to decorate the dish head, maybe select and use it in a smaller portion and keep checking what is leftovers and cut it out to find a way to keep the dish looking good by using a few vegetables.
Adjust to use the right size plate and beautiful design and suitable for the shop
to promote food instead of decorating with ingredients and let it waste.
Besides taking care of the ingredients from the beginning to prevent waste and #stupid-fee, we can also create value along with getting rid of food waste, which Chef Job would like to persuade entrepreneurs to pay attention to take a look at your restaurant whether there is a food waste left or not then try to figure out how it can be used?.
Example:
Shrimp shells, fishbones that are carved or broken must be discarded daily, we can bring it to boil as a stock for cooking tom yum soup, which will help flavour the food for the delicious natural flavour without using powdered seasoning. In case there may not be much of these food scraps in each day, you can freeze until you get the right amount and then use it.
Using the many leftover shrimp heads and tails to make snacks such as fried shrimp heads can boost your sales while reducing food waste.
Hit menu items like pineapple fried rice, for which restaurants like to use the pineapple rind as the container for appeal, but use only a small amount of the meat for the fried rice itself, may need to be developed into other menu items like sweet and sour stir-fry, pineapple yellow curry, pineapple cake, etc., with good planning. Even watermelon rind can be added to sour curry. It’s a way to re-think and use your restaurant’s leftovers as ingredients and eliminate food waste.
You can tune in Zero Food Waste Programto Reduce Costs and Increase Profits through Food Waste Reduction via Facebook : Makro Horeca Academy and the website to increase restaurant owners’ know-how so that they can develop their business to survive the current crisis and to educate them on how to reduce food waste for reducing costs and increasing profits, with the online content on food waste and food waste management methods.
Our highlight is Zero Food Waste Workshop, which is a special workshop open for those interested free of charge on 11 November 2020. Please follow the news via Facebook : Makro Horeca Academy
Stay up to date with articles that entrepreneurs shouldn’t miss out on!
