Chinese Restaurant Chain Recycles its Food Waste to Grow Vegetables

Ohsho Food Service Corporation's nationwide Chinese restaurant chain in Japan, "Gyoza No Ohsho" ("King of Gyoza"; gyoza is a type of Chinese dumpling), has developed a recycle loop whereby food waste from its restaurants is recycled into fertilizer. The fertilizer is then utilized to grow vegetables that are used for food ingredients.

The restaurant chain has installed industrial waste disposers at 113 of its restaurants, where food waste such as scraps, eggshells, and leftovers is put through primary treatment. The treated food waste is then sent to a recycling company where it is recycled into fertilizer and delivered to cooperating farms. The fertilizer is utilized to grow vegetables that are later used as food ingredients at some of the chain's restaurants.

Installing food waste disposers has raised the waste recycling rate at Gyoza No Ohsho's directly-managed restaurants to about 48 percent. As of the end of October 2010, the chain purchases each month approximately five tons of cabbage and about 100 kilograms of saishin (a Chinese cruciferous vegetable) from the cooperating farms for cooking and serving clients. The chain's recycling efforts received recognition and earned the Outstanding Performance Award in the Environment Minister's Awards for Food Recycling Promotion in FY2009.

Meanwhile, the central kitchen where all foodstuffs for the chain are processed sends foodstuff scraps to a cooperating factory where they are recycled into high-grade livestock feed, achieving a recycling rate of 95 percent. Other environmental initiatives that the chain actively employs include the recycling of used disposable chopsticks, measures to reduce cooking oil waste, and the reuse of containers.

Posted: 2011/02/17 06:00:15 AM