Hyatt Regency has come up with innovative ways to reduce food waste. The Hotel began implementing the strategy three months ago by engaging with customers.
“We followed approaches to eliminate food waste by analyzing the type of event and involving our sales team to offer menus based on preference,” says Lars Windfuhr, Executive Chef of Hyatt Regency Addis Ababa.
“Staff sorted left over food and sent to a prime food company to consume for their own farm; hence there won’t be any wastage,” he said. 
Hyatt also is recycling paper and glass. They also have been producing their own bottled water to avoid using plastic bottles. For the last three months, they have given 3,000kg of meat to their prime company, 700 kg of paper has been recycled and 15,000 kg of bottles. When the Hotel set up the water bottling plant, 40,000 USD was invested to install it in their basement. Currently, the plant treats and produces 1,000 glass bottles of water in half and one-liter sizes every day.
According to a study by Tefera Numera, about 66,600 tons of food waste was generated every year from Addis Ababa city. Nearly, 97 percent was generated during food preparation and 3 percent by consumers. But waste contains a high amount of total solids, dissolved solids, and suspended solids, volatile solids that are directly disposed into a landfill. Food waste costs money and pollutes the environment.
The most important step in reducing food waste is to avoid its creation, so focusing on real needs of nutrition and choosing to be careful preparing food and avoiding dumping is essential.
