Resilient Supply Chain Podcast: Food Waste as an Operational Control Failure

Food waste is often framed as a sustainability problem, but its causes lie deep within operational decision-making. In the latest Resilient Supply Chain Podcast, host Tom Raftery speaks with Olaf van der Veen, co-founder of Orbisk, about how forecasting, procurement, inventory practices and process design shape waste in commercial kitchens.

Their conversation examines the tension between maintaining customer choice and controlling the cost of excess capacity. For supply chain leaders, the issue illustrates how poor visibility can turn routine operational decisions into persistent margin, resilience and compliance risks. The full episode is available at www.resilientsupplychainpodcast.com

Waste Begins Before the Customer

The most consequential finding is that approximately 70% of food wasted in commercial kitchens never reaches a customer’s plate. It is lost through overproduction, overstocking, buffet replenishment and unsuitable operating procedures.

This shifts responsibility away from consumer behaviour alone and towards the design of the operating system. As van der Veen observes, “That’s a systems problem. That’s not a behavioral problem.” Procurement rules, menu complexity, portioning, staff incentives and production schedules can each contribute, although their relative importance varies between locations.

The underlying strategic tension is familiar across supply chains: organisations protect service levels by building in surplus. In hospitality, the expectation that every item should remain available can encourage kitchens to purchase and prepare significantly more food than demand ultimately requires. The resulting waste is effectively the cost of unmanaged uncertainty.

Measuring the Operational Blind Spot

Waste bins aggregate the consequences of numerous upstream decisions, yet historically provide little structured information about where those decisions failed. Without reliable data on what was discarded, when and in what quantity, accountability remains difficult to establish.

Better measurement turns waste from a broad environmental concern into a traceable operational variance. Leaders can then connect losses to purchasing patterns, production volumes, menu design, staffing decisions or demand assumptions. This matters because reducing waste is not simply about spending less on ingredients; it can reveal whether the organisation is optimising individual cost categories at the expense of total operating performance.

One example concerned a hotel that used a weekend buffet to reduce kitchen labour. Analysis showed that the additional waste cost exceeded the labour saving by enough to fund more than two chefs. Moving back to an à la carte model lowered waste while improving guest satisfaction. The case demonstrates the danger of managing labour, inventory and service as isolated measures.

Forecasting Requires Human Context

The discussion also draws a clear boundary around the role of artificial intelligence. Pattern recognition can identify recurring waste and combine it with guest numbers, sales, procurement data, weather and local events. However, operational judgement remains necessary to interpret exceptional circumstances.

Van der Veen says that machine-generated and chef-generated forecasts achieved broadly similar accuracy independently, while the combined forecast performed better than either. The implication extends beyond hospitality: automation is most valuable when it strengthens accountable decision-making rather than displacing local expertise.

Economics First, Regulation Close Behind

Tight margins remain the immediate driver for waste reduction, since unused food represents a direct financial loss. Regulatory reporting requirements are nevertheless becoming more influential, increasing the need for consistent, auditable data.

Compliance alone will not deliver resilience if measurement becomes an end in itself. The more durable approach is to use reporting data to improve forecasting, procurement and execution. For supply chain leaders, food waste is therefore a governance indicator: it shows whether demand signals, operating incentives and local decisions are aligned.

Organisations that treat it as a controllable process outcome will be better positioned to balance availability, cost, regulatory pressure and service quality.