New partnership to reduce food waste is launched by Radisson Hotel Group and Too Good To Go

A new partnership to implement positive actions and fight climate change is announced by one of the world’s leading hotel groups - Radisson Hotel Group, with mobile application Too Good To Go in Europe, which connects consumers and restaurants with unsold leftover food.

Too Good To Go is the #1 anti-food waste app as they state that every year, they are on a mission to reduce the food that typically goes to waste as this surplus food also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, Too Good To Go operates solely in Europe, thus the Radisson Hotel Group hotels in Europe contribute towards fighting against food waste and the negative impact that it comes with on the environment and other resources.

A large amount of food is wasted for numerous reasons throughout the world, from individuals over-ordering and restaurants over-preparing. The new partnership can work alongside the Hotel Groups current aim regarding responsible consumption as their current measures include portion control and enhanced storage for food to encourage food preservation.

The consumer can download the free app and purchase surplus food at a set discounted price. This allows both parties to support conserving the environment through lessening food, energy, and water waste. The destinations involved include but are not limited to Austria, Denmark, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, France, the Netherlands, and Spain. These destinations will be able to provide additional food for their local community.

From its commencement, it has been reported that Radisson Hotel Group has prevented 15,367 meals from being wasted, which tallies to a CO² decline of 37.6 tons.

Mette Lykke, Chief Executive Officer of Too Good To Go says: “The latest figures on global food waste from the WWF have discovered the problem to be even higher than previously believed, with 40% of all food going to waste. We need to address this urgently to avoid going backwards on progress we’ve made in recent years. It is through partnerships like this that businesses can make an impact at scale, which we absolutely have a responsibility to do, on the complicated issue of food waste.” 

Inge Huijbrechts, Global Senior Vice President Sustainability, Security and Corporate Communications at Radisson Hotel Group said: “In light of the International Day of Awareness of Food Loss and Waste, we are thrilled to announce our partnership with Too Good To Go. It strengthens our positive impact and is fully aligned with our sustainability goals, including setting science-based emissions reduction targets This strong partnership across Europe highlights the importance of tackling food waste in reaching the UN’s goal of SDG 12.3, to cut global food waste in half by 2030.”

Noot Nordik Kitchen leveling up the game against food waste

The restaurant Noot Nordik Kitchen in the Green Key awarded Radisson Blu Scandinavia Hotel, Gothenburg is taking the fight against food waste to another level.

© Noot Nordik Kitchen

Food waste is one of the biggest challenges in hospitality industry and more and more restaurants and hotels try to level up their initiatives to reduce the amount of unused products and leftovers. The most common strategies to minimise food waste is monitoring, diligent planning of the purchases and meals as well as optimising the storage of the products to extend their shelf life.

The Noot Nordik Kitchen, however, is putting an extra effort on reducing their waste that is produced in the kitchen. They use every last piece of a vegetable or a fruit, turning carrot tops into pesto, lemon peel into both a lemon peel syrup for cocktails, a candied lemon peel for desserts and cocktails or as freshly grated flavoring to a cake. Any tops, peels, pumped corners or cut offs go in to making broths for sauces.

They use fresh, locally grown raspberries to infuse an OP Andersson Aquavit (local to Gothenburg) for their cocktails, the berries left after the infusion gets dried and crushed into a powder we use do decorate cocktails and desserts.

Bread that has gone stale become croutons. Fresh herbs that’s looking a bit sad becomes herb butter. Any ingredients left over from their daily lunches gets new life in a salad, a soup, a stew or are served as a topping on a traditional Danish Smørrebrød. In addition, “ugly” and often discarded vegetables are purchased and given a new life in their perfectly composed dishes.

Sofia Roos, restaurant manager at Noot Nordik Kitchen:

"At Noot we love every crooked carrot, every single potato and all ugly peas. They are the soul of our food philosophy. All we want is to create delicious, tasty and climate-smart dishes without crossing it too much.”

© Noot Nordik Kitchen

.Noot Nordik Kitchen does not only fight against food waste but another cornerstone of the restaurant is to buy as local and sustainable as possible. The fish is local and sustainably caught, they always favour locally grown greens and fruits and they bake their own bread and knead their on pastry for cakes and desserts. They support brewers of all sizes across the Nordic countries so that their guests can enjoy a diverse range of real ales, IPAs, APAs, lagers and stouts. On top of that, they only serve Swedish, organic sodas, there is simply no Cola-Cola in their fridges, but a local and natural Cola Blanco from Dirty Fox Water Brewery in Norrköping.

On their mission to be a front-runner in sustainability, this summer they also joint forces with “Fredagspizza”, a food concept started through the initiative Swedish Food Challenge with the aim of spreading knowledge about and increasing the use of Swedish raw materials in everyday life. Fredags.se works with consciously selected raw materials and places great focus on what we can produce where we live, more specifically in Sweden and the Nordic countries.

On July 15-20 you can visit Noot Nordik Kitchen, where they offer four variants of Swedish pizza with different topping such as lard, fresh potatoes, meatballs and air-dried elk. There are plans for a continuation for this Autumn.

© Noot Nordik Kitchen

French Radisson Blu Hotel turns food waste into organic fertiliser

The Green Key awarded Radisson Blu, Paris, Marne la Vallée, located in the outskirts of Paris, has purchased a new machine to convert its organic waste to fertiliser.

Like most hotels, the Radisson Blu, Paris, Marne la Vallée has to deal with the issue of food waste. Besides using other smart methods to reduce the food waste, the hotel has purchased a machine that extracts water of the organic waste and turns the remains into powder that can be used as fertiliser. The hotel is also installing a water retention tank to recuperate the approximately 80 litres extracted from the food waste per load.  The system will allow the hotel to wash their docking bay and fill their cleaning machines.

Melyssa Cassin, Responsible Business Coordinator at Radisson Blu, Paris, Marne la Vallée says: “We are very focused on lowering our environmental footprint at our hotel in various ways, and we are very proud of having the machine that converts bio-waste into organic fertiliser. By converting the 100 kg of bio-waste created at the hotel daily, we avoid transportation of the organic waste, collected now only once a month and in a few weeks we’ll also be reusing the water from the machine, really zero waste.”

The hotel is also working on lowering its environmental footprint in many other ways, and the hotel has focus on the social aspect of sustainability. To support job opportunities for persons with challenges, the hotel hires a company that employs people with disabilities to be in charge of the management of the green areas of the hotel.