Reduce Your Food Waste

World Food Day offers the perfect opportunity to consider how your vacation rental business manages its food waste, and how this affects your guests, your profit margins, and your emissions.

Wasted food uses up precious natural resources and releases greenhouse gases. It also represents a deep injustice in our global food system, as one-third of the food produced for human consumption goes to waste whilst more than 345 million people face food insecurity.

As a short-term rental owner or property manager, an effective food waste management system is one of the key ways in which you can make your business more sustainable. Read on to discover how proper food waste management benefits the environment, your business, and your guests.

Why food waste is a problem

When food ends up in a landfill site, it releases methane as it decomposes. Methane is a greenhouse gas which contributes to rising global temperatures and the associated climate disasters. Beyond direct emissions from the food itself, there are also the greenhouse gas emissions associated with producing our food. Therefore, the more food we collectively waste, the higher our emissions climb.

In addition, food production requires copious amounts of other resources: water, land, minerals, wood, and labour. When we produce more food than we consume, these resources go to waste.

Another key problem, of course, is that by wasting food, we prevent it from reaching people who really need it. Food insecurity has risen dramatically in recent years, and you have the power to make sure that excess food in your rentals goes to someone who might otherwise go hungry.

These factors have led the UN to dedicate an International Day of Food Waste Awareness. But the good news is that you can get involved in solving this problem all year round.

The benefits of proper food waste management for your short-term rental business

Properly managing your waste food is good for the environment, it’s good for your community, and it’s also good for your business. Here’s why:

Lower your waste management costs

In the UK, short-term rental businesses have a legal obligation to properly dispose of their waste. Sending your waste to landfill comes with a hefty Landfill Tax (£102.10 per tonne of waste).

Food waste often makes up a large bulk of the waste that your guests generate, and it’s quite heavy. Separating out your food waste and disposing of it through sustainable waste management options reduces the volume of waste that you’re sending to landfill. This could save you a hefty chunk of money.

Keep up with guest demand

74% of guests want more sustainable travel options. Sustainable organic waste disposal is a visible way to show guests that you are one of those options. They’ll see the separate bin for food waste and know that you’re embedding eco-friendly changes into your rental business.

When guests know that you align with their values, they’re far more likely to:

• make a return visit
• recommend you to friends & family
• leave a 5-star review

Why not delve further into the ways in which sustainable initiatives benefit your short-term rental business.

Run a more sustainable vacation rental business

Implementing organic waste management in your rental property is an easy, effective way to reduce your business’s waste and greenhouse gas emissions. It also benefits your local ecosystem by returning nutrients to the soil. It can even help you to support other local businesses, such as restaurants and cafés (read to Step 5 below to find out how!).

Whether you’re just starting out on your sustainability journey or you’re looking for your next step, fighting food waste is a crucial element of running a sustainable short-term rental business.

How to fight food waste in your vacation rental

Follow these five steps to set up an effective food waste management system:

1. Install food waste bins

The easiest place to start! Supplying a food waste bin for your vacation rental property allows your guests to start separating out their organic waste. It’s a visible sign that you’re taking sustainable action.

Your waste management service should have an option for disposing of food waste separately. Normally, as part of registering for this option, they’ll provide you with a dedicated food waste bin. If your current service doesn’t have a food waste management solution, now is the time to switch to one that does.

 2. Establish your own compost heap

If you have the time and the space, you could also start your own compost heap. Whilst you can’t add all of your kitchen waste to your compost bin, it’s a great complement to a food waste collection service. It keeps some of your food waste on site, further cutting your transport and processing emissions, and retains all those good nutrients for your own soil.

If you have your own vegetable patch, you can use your compost to fertilise your produce. It’s free, and much better for your soil and your health than synthetic fertilisers. You could even share your fruit and veg with guests to reduce the food miles that they rack up during their stay.

Discover how New Forest Escapes has gone one step further by installing wormeries in their rental properties!

3. Rethink your welcome baskets

A welcome basket is a tried and tested way to make a great first impression on your guest. However, if you’re not careful about what you include, you may accidentally generate even more food waste.

Start paying attention to which edible items reliably disappear, and which ones remain when a guest leaves. Swap out anything that consistently gets left behind with something more suitable:

• Cooking ingredients for guests to use during their stay (olive oil, salt & pepper)
• Non-perishable edible gifts (honey, jam, tea)
• Sustainable items, such as a reusable shopping bag or a KeepCup

Dive into more ways that you can avoid waste in your property with our blog on sustainable consumption.

4. Donate leftover food

Research local organisations that will redistribute leftover food amongst the community. You can either direct your guests towards a donation point or build food donation into your changeover process. Just remember: the easier that you can make it for your guests to make sustainable changes, the more likely they are to do so.

Diane Daniel set up Vacation Donations after realising how much waste was being produced by vacation rentals in her area of Indian Rocks Beach, Florida. Vacation Donations is a non-profit that directs local rental operators towards food donation points, and even helps them to redistribute other items left in their properties, from beach toys to books.

“Although I hate waste, one time I was so overwhelmed by the amount of stuff in the garage and boxes of food in the pantry that I almost tossed it all in the trash,” Diane said. “Then I stopped myself, and found out where to donate most of it.”

So far, Diane has:

• inspired two condo buildings of mostly vacation rentals to put food donation bins in their lobbies.
• motivated a property manager with 300+ properties to share Vacation Donation resources in their greeting info and repeat it with their checkout message.
• had two small food drives at one condo building, where she collected 45 bags of food in only two hours from departing vacationers.

“In the end, it is up to the individuals involved in each vacation rental transaction to reduce food and item waste,” she said. “In our disposable society, that’s a challenge. But it’s one worth taking on.”

Wherever you’re based, it’s likely that there are food banks and charities near you that are in sore need of donations. Find out where they are, how you can donate, and what donations they’ll accept. Then, share this information with your guests and your teams, and make it easy for them to redirect excess food.

See Vacation Donations’ tips on reducing waste in your property.

5. Educate your guests

All of these changes will only be effective if your guests are on board. They need to understand the impact of their food waste, and realise that you’ve made it easy for them to have a more sustainable stay. Make sure to:

• Clearly label bins and include waste disposal instructions in your guest communications and rental guidebook. Sustonica has fun recycling labels that are free to download.
• Encourage guests to initially buy food for just the first half of their stay. This helps them to avoid overbuying at the very beginning, and stay in tune with how much food they actually need.
• Use your digital guidebook to direct guests towards local, independent, sustainable restaurants when they want to eat out.
• Make it really easy for guests to donate their leftover food. You might leave a box in a cupboard and ask them to place any leftover items in it at the end of their stay for your changeover team to sort through.

Most of these changes are really about communication. If you can show your guests that it’s easy for them to be mindful of their food waste, they’re far more likely to change their behaviour.

Save money and welcome happier guests with EnviroRental

Sustainability is so much more than a responsibility that we have to ourselves, our planet, and our communities. It’s also a business benefit.

Eco-friendly initiatives reduce waste and make your business more efficient, saving you money over the long-term. They also give you a competitive edge in a market where more and more guests are looking for sustainable stays.

Here at EnviroRental, we’ve created a free online hub of sustainability resources for short-term rental operators. The star of the show is the Sustainability Roadmap, which walks you through practical, concrete strategies for running a more sustainable rental business. From reducing your food waste to tracking your carbon emissions, it contains everything you need to know.

Sign up to access EnviroRental’s free sustainability resources today.