Why are hotels wasting food?

I recently hosted a few guests and after our meeting, we decided to catch up over coffee at a hotel near Dubai’s airport, as it was close to our client’s office. We were quite late for the breakfast buffet, and were told that the buffet would close at 11am, which was fair.

The staff were polite enough to remind us at around 11.10am that they would be removing the breakfast service, and if we wanted anything, this was the last call. I headed out to the juice bar to grab a watermelon juice and to my surprise, found that the staff members were pouring excess fresh juice down the drain. While we were seated and finishing off our breakfast, I saw the staff removing the food that was on display (breads, croissants and muffins), and they could have been more careful in how they went about handling it. They made me suspect that all of the excess food was going in the bin instead of being recycled. While I can understand that these hotels want to maintain their standards and cannot reuse food for their own customers, the excess food and beverages could definitely be distributed to the underprivileged.

I feel that in this era, where the authorities and society, as a whole, are working towards sustainability, there is such rampant food wastage. I feel terrible that I had to see fresh juice being drained right in front of my eyes. Surely, the hotel industry can do much better. Let’s all remember that 2017 has been declared the Year of Giving, so from that perspective, it would take minimal additional effort for the hotel to share what they have, instead of wasting it.

- The reader is a payments specialist based in Dubai.