How to Reduce Bakery Waste: 10 Tips and Tricks
Did you know that the Philippines produces 61,000 metric tons of waste each day? For this reason, you must know how to reduce bakery waste and recycle it if possible.
In this post, we’ll discuss bakery waste, why you should reduce it, and the top tips and tricks for reducing it.
What Is Bakery Waste?
Bakery waste is a mix of organic and organic waste produced by bakeries. It mainly comprises leftovers, unsold baked goods, expired baked goods, single-use plastics, and dirty packaging.
In particular, bakery waste is generated at different stages of the baking process, from preparation to packaging. For example, overbaked cookies or misshaped pastries often end up as waste. The same goes for single-use plastic gloves used to prepare food.
In addition, organic waste from bakeries usually can’t be reprocessed, so it usually ends up in landfills or as food for animals. Let’s take a look at bakery waste in more detail below:
Bakery Waste Composition
Here are the primary components of bakery waste:
Unsold Baked Goods
This category includes bread, cakes, cookies, and other baked goods that have exceeded their shelf lives or have issues that make them unsuitable for sale.
Batter Residue
Leftover batter from the baking process is also considered waste. Overproduction, recipe changes, or trimming excess dough usually produce the residue.
Expired Ingredients
Bakery waste includes spoiled or expired ingredients like flour, sugar, milk, and eggs. While these baking ingredients are crucial to producing delicious products, they can become waste if not managed properly.
Packaging Materials
Materials like plastic, paper, foil, and boxes can also become waste if used improperly.
How Bakery Waste Is Generated
Bakery waste can be generated in different stages of food production, including the following:
Preparation
Generating bakery waste can begin with ingredient preparation. This includes measuring, mixing, and handling sugar, eggs, flour, and other ingredients. Bakery waste can accumulate at this stage because of over-measuring, spilling, and other such incidents.
Baking
Your bakery can also produce waste during the baking process. Imperfections, overproduction,
and bad taste can make your products unfit for sale. These often force bakery owners to throw out or stop selling subpar items.
Trimming and Shaping
Bakers often trim dough to make products with the same shapes and sizes. While this is crucial in producing uniform items, this process generates additional waste.
Expiration
Many bakery products have short shelf lives. When they go beyond their sell-by dates, they often become waste.
Packaging
Materials like plastic bags, boxes, and paper can become bakery waste if not used or disposed of properly.
Why Reduce Bakery Waste
Here are the four main reasons why you should reduce bakery waste:
Reducing Bakery Waste Helps the Environment
Decreasing your bakery waste or bakery waste recycling helps the environment in many ways.
For one, it reduces the total volume of waste going to landfills. Organic waste, like bread, cookies, cakes, and other bakery products, decomposes and produces methane.
Methane contributes to climate change. Hence, reducing bakery waste or bakery waste recycling can reduce your bakery’s carbon footprint.
Cutting down on waste also helps you conserve resources. The production of bakery items requires electricity, water, energy, and raw ingredients like flour, sugar, and eggs. When bakery goods go to waste, these resources are used in vain. By managing your production, recycling bakery waste, or selling products at a discount, you help conserve valuable resources.
Reducing Bakery Waste Helps Communities
Reducing bakery waste and bakery waste recycling also support communities in many ways.
For one, bakeries partnering with local food banks, community centers, and shelters donate unsold products that are still safe to eat. This helps feed people in need and fosters a sense of community.
Doing this can also strengthen the bakery’s standing in the community. It can help enhance its reputation and encourage people to support a socially responsible business.
Additionally, reducing waste can help bakeries save money. These savings can lead to more affordable goods, letting people enjoy delicious treats without breaking the bank.
Food Waste Affects Your Staff
Did you know excessive bakery waste can affect your staff’s performance and job satisfaction?
According to research, nine out of ten bakery employees know how much food their bakery wastes daily, while 71% stated that their workplace has no system to reduce waste. As a result, one-third of staff morale is affected.
So, share your waste reduction goals with your staff. You might be surprised by the many ways they can help reduce waste and how eager they are to do so.
Your staff plays a huge role in reducing bakery waste, from reducing excess dough to determining which items should be sold first.
Customers Care About Sustainability
Consumers also care about the environment and usually vote by buying more products from you.
51% of people surveyed said that seeing a lot of waste prevents them from buying from a store again. In the same survey, 43% said that they’re willing to pay more for takeout from more sustainable establishments.
In a nutshell, customers want you to reduce bakery waste or recycle bakery waste. They notice and offer sustainable packaging. They notice your efforts and become more loyal to your bakery. Some will shoulder a price increase to help with your pro-planet efforts.
How to Reduce Bakery Waste
- Measure ingredients properly.
- Track leftovers.
- Maintain your equipment.
- Monitor your sales.
- Label and pack your products properly.
- Handle your products well.
- Go digital.
- Take deposits.
- Create a production schedule.
- Donate unsold items or sell them at a discount.
Experts say that about 90% of bakery waste can be composted or recycled.
According to the Washington Post, a medium-sized bakery produces about 100 pounds of excess bread daily. In addition, the Kerry Health and Nutrition Institute said that bread and bakery waste accounts for the highest volume of food wasted and lost worldwide.
Plus, if you line up wasted bread, it will be longer than a blue whale. If you stack it up, it will be taller than a building with ten floors. And that’s just one day’s worth of wasted bread.
Yikes.
So, how do you stop being the problem and become part of the solution? Here are the top tips and tricks to reduce waste:
How to Reduce Bakery Waste Tip #1: Measure Ingredients Properly
Accurate measurement means the difference between a delicious product and something worth throwing.
Baking is an art and a science, and taking care of the science part helps you produce the same quality of products each day, reduce bakery waste, and do bakery waste recycling if possible.
Measuring your ingredients properly helps reduce food waste. Think about the milk, eggs, flour, and sugar you could save if you measured everything correctly. Remember to invest in high-quality kitchen tools and equipment to do so.
How to Reduce Bakery Waste Tip #2: Track Leftovers
Tracking leftovers is another way to reduce waste. It lets you know when there’s too much of one thing so you can make the necessary changes.
But for this to happen, you need your staff’s help. Teach them how to monitor leftovers and how important it is in reducing waste. Make sure they feel comfortable telling you about what doesn’t sell.
A quick daily check-in can do the trick. And don’t forget to make small adjustments based on what you learn from tracking your leftovers. It might be a simple step, but it greatly helps Mother Earth.
How to Reduce Bakery Waste Tip #3: Maintain Your Equipment
This might seem tough at first, but regular maintenance checks will save you time, money, and stress. Just think about everything you can save to service your baking equipment before it breaks. It’s worth it, right?
If you notice a fraying cord on a blender, a crack in your baking pan, or inconsistencies in your oven temperature, address the issues immediately. Waiting can mean more expensive repairs, downtime while you wait for parts or repairs, and general stress.
Your equipment is the heart of your bakery business, and it only works as such if it’s maintained. Imagine if your oven fails while you’re baking. You waste the ingredients and your time, effort, and money.
Mixers that don’t work cannot properly combine the ingredients, making your products less delicious, leading to lower profits and more waste.
Even worse, a poorly serviced machine might endanger your employees and customers. So, have all your equipment regularly checked and serviced for your peace of mind.
How to Reduce Bakery Waste Tip #4: Monitor Your Sales
Monitoring your sales doesn’t just let you know what’s in and what’s out. While it’s extremely helpful from a sales perspective, tracking what sells helps you save the environment.
You see, accurate sales forecasting lets you manage your inventory better, create a more efficient baking schedule, reduce bakery waste, and do waste recycling if possible. Remember, sales patterns tell you stories you might otherwise miss.
How to Reduce Bakery Waste Tip #5: Label and Pack Your Products Properly
An accurate labeling and packaging system doesn’t just make your products look their best when displayed or delivered. It also reduces waste.
Double chocolate cookies labeled as red velvet cookies mean that your customers didn’t get what they ordered, making them throw your products away.
How to Reduce Bakery Waste Tip #6: Handle Your Products Well
Handling your products is just as important as baking them.
For example, carrot cupcakes dropped during delivery waste the cupcakes, the resources used to make them, and the packaging.
So, train your staff to handle your products with care during baking, packaging, and delivery. If you use third-party delivery services, tell the drivers to handle your products carefully. This ensures both the safety of the staff and the food and your customers’ satisfaction.
How to Reduce Bakery Waste Tip #7: Go Digital
Technology lets you receive orders and payments more efficiently. Take advantage of this and help save the environment.
By going digital, you save on paper and run your business more efficiently. You can also reduce cancellations and avoid unfulfilled orders, helping reduce your bakery’s carbon footprint.
How to Reduce Bakery Waste Tip #8: Take Deposits
Get a percentage of large or custom orders to discourage no-shows. Customers will more likely pick up orders they’ve already paid for.
By doing this, you ensure that your products don’t totally go to waste. At least you cover some of the costs if no one picks up the order. Then, you can sell the unsold treats at a discount or give them to shelters.
How to Reduce Bakery Waste Tip #9: Create a Production Schedule
There’s a popular saying among chefs: Plan your work, work your plan. When you have a production schedule, you maximize your time, equipment, and ingredients.
Do you bake a lot of chocolate chip cookies on the weekends when your weekend top sellers are brookies? How about producing less fruit cake during the weekdays because your best weekday seller is Japanese cheesecake?
Check your sales, then plan your production based on the demand. To do this, plan products for downtime as the dough rises or the fruits chill. For instance, you can bake chocolate chip cookies a day after making chocolate cake (or vice versa) to use up leftover chocolate chips. You can also list down what recipes you can walk away from and come back to later.
How to Reduce Bakery Waste Tip #10: Sell Items at a Discount or Donate Them
Decreasing the price of day-old items or items near their expiration dates is a tried and true practice. Selling products at a discount increases the chances of them being sold and consumed.
If you feel like you can’t sell everything before they expire, consider donating the food. Food pantries and similar organizations usually welcome donations of unsold bakery items.
As an alternative, you can let your employees take home the items near their expiration dates. This will not just help save the environment but also show your employees that you care about them.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can donate unsold items to local food banks, sell them at discounted prices, or let your employees take them home.
You can reduce bakery waste by accurately measuring ingredients, tracking leftovers to adjust production, regularly maintaining equipment, monitoring sales, correctly labeling and packaging products, carefully handling products, using digital tools for order management, taking deposits on large orders, creating a production schedule, and donating or selling unsold items at a discount.
You can make your bakery more efficient by investing in high-quality equipment, training your staff, and having production schedules.
Conclusion
Waste is a growing concern in the Philippines, especially for bakery owners. From plastics to food, it’s a huge concern worth addressing. Plus, not considering your bakery’s waste can prevent you from being profitable.
So print or bookmark this guide to make your way to a more sustainable, earth-loving bakery people will be loyal to!
About HICAPS
Over the years, HICAPS has helped bakers and businesses make delicious products by offering ingredients like ChiffonAide Cake Oil, Magic Whizk Whipping Cream, Red Velvet Flavor Emulco, and Instabake Brownie Mix.
HICAPS also provides tools and resources to valued partners, such as the free “How to Increase Your Sales Amidst the Pandemic” E-book and free dealer locator that helps look for baking ingredients near me.
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