Beside to being one of the most famous designer furniture and decoration chains in the world, IKEA also has one of the largest restaurant chains in the world, although not everyone knows this. And, like every restaurant chain, they deal with the issue of food waste at a time when humanity must rethink many behaviors due to climate change and hunger in the world.
The IKEA restaurants have good news about this: They got to reduce food waste by half, compared to the volumes that were thrown into the trash bin in 2017, according to the company itself.
Data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) says that global food waste represent up to 10% of greenhouse gases. In addition, the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), in its annual food waste report for 2021, pointed out that 931 million tons of food are wasted in the world every year (17% of the total food available to consumers), of which 244 million tons come from the gastronomic industries.
Well done, folks IKEA!
Ingka Group, owner of most IKEA stores, had announced in 2017 that they aimed to halve food waste, using artificial intelligence instruments to better adapt the quantities cooked according to demand.
Thus, the daily food waste in each IKEA restaurant averaged 330 pounds (150 kg), which total about 43,000 tons per year. In its statement, Ingka assured that the cut means a reduction of more than 20 million dishes, and a cut of 36,000 tons of carbon dioxide. In addition to the benefit for the environment, the company saved almost $37 million, according to a spokesman of the chain, whose restaurants receive about 560 million diners per year.
“Although this achievement represents a relatively small proportion of our overall climate footprint (0.1%), it is an important step that we are proud of”, he said.
IKEA, in its entire value chain, from the production of raw materials to the disposal of products and packaging by customers, accounted an emmision of 26.2 million tons of CO2 (between August 2020 and August 2021).
“We continue to explore, test and develop ways to prevent and reduce food waste in our operations, as well as inspire our customers and many people to do the same”, Ingka added.
The IKEA restaurants offer a home-prepped and costumer-focused menu, with a not that big but large enough list of meals, crowned with its rock star dish: the meatballs.
The Ikea meatballs are an all-time favorite of its costumers because, no matter which restaurant to go to, they will always have the same texture, flavor and cooking point. Also, for the veggie member of the family, the chain is starting to slowly introduce the plant-based version of this famous dish.
Customers can now bring home the LATTLAGAT plant balls with mashed potatoes and vegetable balls with rice, priced at $6 and $6.50 respectively. Also, you can’t lose the adorable turtle bread buns, filled with red beans puree.