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Food waste was identified as “very high priority” for more than half — 55 percent — of meeting planners surveyed, yet conversations between meeting planners and venues about food waste tend to be rare, according to a 2024 survey.
From untouched box lunches and platters of food quietly thrown in the trash to the trays of desserts that are discarded after events, the events industry is a significant contributor to food waste in the U.S., where nearly 40 percent of food goes unsold or uneaten. It is not that meeting professionals don’t consider controlling food waste a high priority — most do, according to a survey conducted in 2024 for the World Wildlife Fund. Food waste was a “very high priority” for more than half — 55 percent — of meeting planners surveyed, while another third said that it was a consideration for themselves and their clients or internal stakeholders but was secondary to other concerns, according to the survey report, “Unveiling the Appetite for Change: The Imperative for Addressing Food Waste Resulting from Professional Meetings & Events,” conducted by Astrapto, an events sustainability consultant, and Richard Garlick and Associates, a research and consulting firm.
Despite the importance of the issue to planners, the survey — conducted by events sustainability consultant Astrapto and Richard Garlick and Associates, a research and consulting firm — revealed a gap between the priority that they place on food- waste prevention and how often the subject is raised in the conversations planners have with venues. Nine out of 10 planners said they that would respond favorably if a venue proactively offered potential solutions to food waste and 60 percent said that they would be significantly more likely to use a venue in the future if it if the venue brought it up. Yet venues that initiate those discussions are “scarce,” according to the survey report: Only 16 percent of planners said that the venues they work with “frequently” bring up food-waste prevention, while another 37 percent said venues will “occasionally” raise the subject. And many of those conversations, when they happen, often don’t go well, the survey revealed: When planners initiated conversations about food waste, they experienced resistance from venues about 60 percent of the time.
‘There’s a Lot of Automatic No’
Sustainability expert Aurora Dawn Benton
That data was consistent with the feedback she receives as a consultant working with both planners and venues on sustainability issues, including food-waste prevention, said Aurora Dawn Benton, Astrapto’s founder, who has a Ph.D. in business administration/social impact management, and wrote the survey report with researcher Rick Garlick. In her work with planners, Benton said she has seen an “increasing frustration that venues will not do the things they’re asking them to do or that there’s a lot of pushback — there’s a lot of automatic no” about preventing food waste. But the data also showed that when venues are willing to proactively engage on the topic of food waste and not put up barriers and resistance, it translates into planners being more likely to use that venue again in the future, she said.
That creates a lot of opportunity, Benton told Convene, for venues to build loyalty with planners by actively bringing up solutions for minimizing food waste at their events. And there are ways, Benton said, for both venues and planners to share more information with one another that have the potential to move the industry forward when it comes to controlling food waste.
Expanding the Conversation
For starters, Benton suggests that communication about food waste should include the venue’s event services and other staff, not simply the chef. Often, when planners email a venue’s sales or client services team to ask about food-waste control, the email simply gets forwarded to the chef in charge of the venue’s F&B, she said. “I love the chefs. The chefs are great — they are vital to any change,” Benton said. But when, she asked, are we having food-waste conversations with banquet captains, who play a pivotal role in how food is replenished at events? A chef can have in place the best practices in the world, and all it takes is one banquet captain who thinks that he or she knows better, and they will override all your good intentions by bringing out food that wasn’t supposed to be brought out,” she said. Factors like the size of vessels for syrups and salad dressings or portion sizes are seldom discussed, but drive a lot of food waste, Benton said. “There is opportunity for sales and, especially for client services teams, to add value and be consultative around food waste,” she said, “and to create an atmosphere where these conversations are allowed and welcomed and explored, versus just the automatic no.”
Food-Waste Selfies
On the planner side, there is untapped opportunity to collect and share more data about food waste at their events to share with their venue contacts, according to the survey. More than three out of five planners said they would “actively advocate and promote” greater data collection at all their events, and one-third said they would consider doing this for some of their events if their clients were agreeable, but less than half say that they share as much data as they could. That’s mainly due to inaction: More than two out of five planners said that “sharing this type of data is not top of mind during the planning process” while another 40 percent said that “no one asks for it.”
RELATED: Addressing ‘Prolifically Problematic’ Food Waste at Meetings
One simple thing that planners can do is to start taking photos of wasted food at their events to share during conversations with venues, Benton said. Then, “at the next venue or the next time you’re back at that venue, pull that up and say, ‘We’ve been taking photos at our recent events and we’re just seeing this trend with all this wasted dessert.’” Don’t be punitive or use the photos in ways that could erode trust, Benton added, but use them to start conversations.
One tactic for meeting planners: take pictures at events of the amount of food that goes to waste.
The Confidence to Make Changes
One of the things that happens when planners start documenting food waste is that it gives them the confidence to make changes, Benton said. We can get stuck in a rut when we do things the same way for a long time, as many of the people in the events industry, including in F&B, have done, she said. “Jumping out of that requires a lot of courage, a lot of trust, a lot of communication, a lot of assurances. And that’s just not easy to do.”
But making the effort can lead the way to real progress, Benton said. One example came from a recent conversation she had while working with a chef for an event that she is consulting with on overall sustainability. The chef was already implementing many of the things that Benton recommended around food waste, he told Benton, because he had worked with another planner who sets a very high bar around food waste. “It’s kind of interesting,” the chef said. “We used to say no to a lot of the stuff that [this event] required of us. And it made us realize that all these things we were saying no to actually were quite doable.”
Beyond Composting
In her experience working with planners and venues on issues including food-waste prevention, Benton sees a lot of focus on composting as the go-to solution to food waste, she said. The idea is “if you are composting, then you can technically say ‘We don’t have food waste,’ which, of course, is ridiculous and not true,” said Benton.
The survey showed that when venues did proactively address food waste with event planners, venues suggested composting or food donation 68 percent of the time.” Venues and planners were much less like likely to consider solutions that reduced the overall amount of food prepared, including adjusting meal sizes and quantities based on accurate head counts or controlling portions.
Barbara Palmer is deputy editor at Convene.