Low-Waste Events Toolkit
Reduce Food Waste at Your Events
The Low-Waste Events Toolkit is an ongoing project that provides guides, checklists, and other resources for event planners and venues to implement food waste reduction practices. Built on learnings from large-scale pilots at real-world events, the toolkit provides actionable insights and implementable practices to make food waste easier to track and reduce in the hospitality and foodservice sectors.
Reducing Food Waste at Events for Planners and Venues
Planners and venues have critical roles to play in reducing food waste at events—and if they work together, they can make a bigger impact. The goal may be the same, but planners and venues have different ways of working. Both can follow their own natural flows of food to work together to reduce food waste at events.
1. Discover
Build food waste prevention into planning, confirm diversion partners, and use attendance data to adjust and reduce waste.
2. Design
Co-design menus to reduce waste, limit presets and variety, and align on portions to prevent overproduction and special meal waste.
3. Deliver
Agree on real-time service adjustments and embed food waste expectations in BEOs and on-site communications for consistency.
4. Debrief
Request a post-event summary on production, surplus, donation, and composting to improve future forecasting and planning.
1. Design
Review upcoming food waste prevention opportunities during weekly team planning meetings.
2. Order
Identify donation and compost partners, inform planners, and limit orders to 3-5% above confirmed counts to reduce waste.
3. Prep
Standardize portion sizes for your top 5-10 most-ordered menu items to reduce overproduction and waste.
4. Serve
Right-size serving vessels to match portions and maintain appeal with frequent, smaller refills.
5. Eat
Set service end times in advance and reduce refills and lines in the final 15-20 minutes as guest flow slows.
6. Debrief
Send post-event summaries on donation, composting, and waste prevention, highlighting outcomes and opportunities.
Resources
Prevent food from going to waste in your events by working collaboratively. The resources in the Low-Waste Events Toolkit are designed for event planners and venues to collaborate on these strategies. Reducing food waste at events slashes costs while maintaining the guest experience.
Planners and venues can use these resources to collaborate on food waste prevention and reduction strategies before the event takes place.
Planner Guidelines & Resources Planner
The guidelines for planners with links to supporting documents
Venue Guidelines & Resources Venue
The guidelines for venues with links to supporting documents
Pre-Event/Pre-Con Food Waste Checklist Planner
Checklist of actions to execute during planning and walk-throughs
Food Waste Prevention Questions for RFPs Planner
A template for planners to include food waste prevention and sustainability requirements in their Requests for Proposals (RFPs)
Planner Expectations Checklist for Venues Planner
A checklist for planners to share with venues about food waste prevention and reduction expectations
Creating Portion Specs to Reduce Food Waste Venue
A checklist to stand up a process for creating portion specs for different categories of food
Venues can use these resources on the ground at events and make real-time adjustments to prevent food from becoming waste.
Weekly Food Waste Meeting Prompts Venue
A series of questions for venues to ask in weekly meetings with their teams in order to reduce food waste at events
Right-Sizing Service: Vessel Selection & Refill Strategy Venue
Steps to set up service that matches what's actually eaten, not just what looks visually appealing
Guest Experience & Surplus Management Guide Venue
Steps to maintain guest satisfaction while reducing plate waste and managing surplus responsibly
Food Production Range Tool Venue
A calculator that allows venues to track and measure food waste and suggests adjusted portion specs
Planners and venues can finish events strong by using these resources to recap what went well, what went to waste, and how the next event can be even less wasteful.
Event Wrap-Up & Food Waste Summary Venue
A template that prompts venue teams (broken down by department) to answer what went well, what went to waste, and what improvements to make at future events
Post-Event Food Waste Recap Template Planner
A template for planners to identify where surplus occurred, how recovery went, and what can be adjusted for future events
Collaborate Across the Food System
The U.S. Food Waste Pact brings stakeholders from across the supply chain together to prevent and reduce food waste. From producers, to manufacturers, to distributors, to foodservice operators, to grocery retailers, signatories of the Pact report food waste data, discuss best practices, and test and scale food waste solutions.