Sustainability-certified chef on food waste prevention and learning from scraps
Abhishek Tiwari has 23 years of experience in food service, plus a Master of Science in Applied Culinary Nutrition and a Postgraduate Diploma in Sustainability. For the past five years, he’s been Head Chef at Osprey Hotel in Naas, Count Kildare, Ireland – serving 140-150 covers a day, and over 400 on weekends. Abhishek was named Chef of the Year for Leinster at the 2024 Irish Hotel Awards. He’s also an Ambassador for The Burnt Chef Project and mentors aspiring chefs through culinary networking programs. Food waste reduction is part of his research, alongside circular kitchen models and sustainable menu development.
Catch a glimpse behind the scenes on LinkedIn: Abhishek Tiwari
Do you think the hospitality industry is moving fast enough on waste reduction? And if not, what’s holding it back?
No, the hospitality industry is not moving fast enough to meet Ireland’s commitment to UN Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 12.3, which aims to halve per capita food waste by 2030.
What’s holding the sector back is a legacy kitchen mindset that equates over-portioning with luxury, combined with a lack of structured training and systems thinking.
Kitchens are reactive environments. Without data-driven menu engineering and micro-monitoring of waste streams, chefs remain blind to the financial drain and environmental damage their choices cause.
What got you personally invested in sustainability and tackling food waste? Was there a moment, or did it build over time?
It was a progressive realisation that peaked when I combined 23 years of kitchen experience with academic study, an MSc in Applied Culinary Nutrition and a PgDip in Sustainability.
Over a long career, you see tonnes of perfectly usable food end up in bins.
The turning point came from Irish hospitality data showing the hotel sector generates 53,000 tonnes of food waste annually, costing businesses an estimated €180 million.
This data made me realise food waste is a systemic failure. I became determined to use my kitchen as a live workplace, bridging academic sustainability theory and commercial kitchen profitability.
Has a guest ever said or done something that changed how you think about what ends up in the bin?
Yes. During large banquets and wedding functions, I noticed substantial volumes of side vegetables and potatoes coming back untouched, along with half-eaten food on plates. Feedback from our F&B team confirmed the food was excellent, but portions were a little heavy to finish.
This aligned with the EPA’s hotel function factsheets, which show plate waste accounts for 53% of function food waste, 87% of which is avoidable. That made it clear over-portioning was an operational flaw, and it’s what sparked my focus on precision portion control and structural plate engineering.
What’s the biggest (or best) mistake your kitchen made when it comes to waste?
Often, we ended up with cauliflower stalks, outer leaves, and root vegetable peelings after prepping for big functions or other outlets.
In most kitchens, these parts are tossed into the organic bin because chefs assume they can’t be eaten.
Instead of throwing them away, we used them as a teaching moment for the team.
We dried the peelings in a low oven for a crisp texture, then blended them into a savoury seasoning powder. Then we chopped the tough cauliflower leaves and stalks and salt-fermented them into a tangy, house-made kimchi.
We used both to garnish our main courses, and they became everyday rituals. This near-miss taught my team a lesson: with a little food science, parts of the vegetable that look like waste can become high-end, healthy ingredients.
Do you have a specific number that captures your impact on food waste?
18% – by applying menu engineering and micro-monitoring our waste streams, we carved out a verified 18% reduction in kitchen organic waste. This cut our function food costs by 2%, shown by a direct drop in our monthly commercial waste collection invoices.
What’s one waste habit from your kitchen that others should steal?
Prevention and measure – any kitchen can implement this “3 Rs” action matrix immediately.
Reduce: Shrink plate diameters and side bowl specifications to enforce portion control naturally.
Reuse: Establish a dedicated kitchen station to upcycle clean kitchen trimmings into stocks, purees, drying, pickling and fermentations.
Recycle/Monitor: Conduct micro-audits of organic bins before disposal to track exact kitchen waste patterns.
If you had to leave one piece of advice for someone trying to cut waste in their kitchen, what would it be?
Master prevention through menu engineering and strict portion control.
According to the food waste hierarchy, prevention is your highest-leverage, most profitable option.
A sustainable kitchen starts on paper, long before a knife touches a cutting board.
Design your menus with ingredient cross-utilization so raw stock flows quickly and never spoils.
Stop guessing your portion sizes: weigh menu components to the exact gram, reduce your plate diameters, and audit what comes back on the plates.
WRITTEN BY:
KITRO
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