Watch | How to build a zero-waste restaurant. And why no Indian chef has succeeded – yet

Imagine a restaurant where every morsel and package is repurposed, recycled, or composted – sounds like a challenging goal, doesn’t it? However, this is the holy grail of zero-waste dining, a growing global movement.

Unfortunately, India, one of the leading contributors to global food waste, has yet to produce a zero-waste restaurant. Food waste has serious consequences, including environmental devastation, biodiversity loss, and pollution, and though India produces a whopping 68.8 million tonnes of waste each year, there is hope on the horizon.

Some Indian chefs are making strides towards more sustainable culinary practices, aiming for zero waste. “Indian kitchens have historically been rooted in sustainability,” says executive chef Yutaka Saito of Delhi’s HOME, who is reducing carbon emissions by attempting to craft a climate-conscious menu.

While achieving zero-waste cooking is a significant challenge, there are chefs across India leading the way by successfully implementing sustainable practices in their establishments. Anumitra Ghosh Dastidar is the owner of Bengaluru’s Bento Bento and Yo Colombo! restaurants, but she is best known for the sustainable restaurant Edible Archives in Goa. She explains how she works with locally sourced ingredients, saying “By using sushi rice substitutes, such as India’s indigenous rice, we support local farmers and reduce our carbon footprint.”

However, Anumitra faces significant challenges in reducing waste efficiently in Bengaluru, where she has limited space. “It has to be incorporated into the design. In Goa, we have a small garden and a big compost pit. So, we compost all our wet waste there,” she says, adding that they then use the compost in their vegetable garden. They also reuse vegetable peels to make fritters and give their dogs or stray cats leftover bones.

While she has to rely on plastic or carton-packaged milk in the bigger cities, contributing to her dry waste pile, in Goa, she and her team ride a scooter to the local market for produce. Although her tie-up with local farms now provides her with vegetables in Bengaluru directly from farmers, the issue of wet waste remains. The lack of strict waste segregation by municipal officials in Bengaluru is another big concern. She believes there should be conversations between those who generate more waste, such as restaurants, and local officials to encourage more responsibility. “It’s not just the laws that are responsible, but citizens also need to be accountable. But I haven’t seen many conversations happening,” she says.

Reducing food waste in restaurants is critical, but Anumitra’s experience illustrates the need for customised solutions to address the challenges of different locations. Chef Douglas McMaster of the world’s first zero-waste restaurant, Silo, in London, put it bluntly in his TED talk, “Waste is nothing but a failure of imagination.”

One chef who has embraced the challenge is Rahul Sharma, executive chef of ARAKU Coffee, who believes that zero-waste cooking is not just about reducing waste but also creating value from discarded ingredients.

To minimise food waste, the cafe uses every part of an ingredient, from potato and onion skins to almond skins, which are salted and dried for a tasty snack. Even unsold pastries are repurposed into a spice mix for soup.

Rahul says that zero-waste cooking does not come at a higher cost for the restaurant. In fact, it helps reduce costs by allowing them to make more use of products that would otherwise be wasted. “It’s just a matter of using our imagination and creativity to solve problems and work towards a sustainable future,” he says.

To minimise single-use plastic waste, the cafe collaborates with farms and recycling facilities. They obtain their produce directly from farms, eliminating intermediaries, and use recyclable baskets or paper bags for the transportation of most items. Additionally, they opt for cling wraps made of starch, rather than plastic.

However, like Anumitra, Rahul too is yet to achieve that zero-waste restaurant status. “We steer clear of single-use plastic as much as possible, although certain items, such as packaging for chicken, cannot be avoided.,” Rahul laments.

Chef Anahita N Dhondy, based in Delhi and the author of the book The Parsi Kitchen, former partner of Soda Bottle Opener Wala and a proponent of zero-waste cooking believes the primary obstacle is convincing customers to order and appreciate dishes that use non-conventional ingredients such as onion skin and leftover dal. According to her, “Even if we prepare them, if customers don’t order them, they go to waste.”

To address this challenge, Anahita stresses the importance of honest labelling and educating customers on the advantages of zero-waste cooking. She notes, “We need to alter people’s attitudes towards these ingredients, making them more receptive.” She stresses the need for chefs to play a part in reducing food waste. “If we want to include anything, we need to do it in a manner that allows the customer to read about it on the menu and become interested,” she explains.

Anahita has been using her Instagram page with 166K followers to spread awareness about food waste and how to reduce it. She gives tips on using peels to create stocks, leftover spring onions, and preserving food to minimise spoilage. Her goal is to inspire customers to make more conscious and eco-friendly decisions by creating awareness and promoting sustainable practices.

Independent chef and mixologist Arina Suchde, based in Mumbai, is also passionate about reducing food waste and acknowledges the challenge of changing the mindset of both consumers and business owners. She explains, “A couple of the biggest barriers to introducing zero waste cooking in a restaurant are changing the mentality that you’re not literally using rubbish, both from the consumer front and the kitchen or the business owner front.”

To overcome these barriers, Arina educates staff and customers about the benefits of using all parts of an ingredient, citing the example of the edible and nutritious carrot skin and watermelon rind. “Using waste as an ingredient, rather than as surplus or extra scraps, could lead to more creative and interesting menu offerings,” she says.

Other than workshops, Arina has also developed sustainable recipes and products for The Pantry Mumbai, in Kalaghoda and Woodside Inn bar. She emphasises the role of chefs, cooks, and kitchen staff in reducing food waste, noting that many of them come from villages where resourcefulness is crucial.

“There are several native recipes that use parts of vegetables and fruits that would otherwise go to waste,” she says, giving the example of dhantal (cauliflower stalk) subzi, chutneys made from gourd peels like parval (pointed gourd), karela (bitter gourd) and south Indian chutneys made of orange peels or pumpkin guts and Gujarati bateka nu shaak (potato curry) made without peeling the potato.

“I don’t look at it as village or city cooking. It’s just cooking habits that we should have picked up from previous generations,” she adds, highlighting the fact that zero-waste cooking is not a new concept for Indians, but rather a return to traditional practices that prioritise sustainability. “But the kitchen staff’s hesitation is that they don’t think consumers want to pay for it because they assume that consumers are used to a specific taste and quality.”

Despite these challenges, Arina remains committed to reducing food waste and ultimately implementing zero-waste cooking practices in restaurants, homes and corporations through her workshops. “Even the business owners, when they see that it’s helping and affecting the bottom line in the sense of offsetting a lot of food waste and food loss cost, start understanding the importance of reducing waste,” she said.

Zero waste cooking in restaurants isn’t just a noble idea, but a necessary one. As we navigate the challenges of climate change and strive towards sustainability, it’s heartening to see chefs in India taking the lead in crafting creative recipes, replacing exotic ingredients for indigenous produce, and minimising food waste. However, the key to building the country’s first zero-waste restaurant might lie in looking inward – by sourcing locally, supporting neighbourhood vendors and building a sustainable ecosystem to support our chefs in their noble pursuits. Because ultimately zero-waste cooking, is all about creating a better future for both our planet and our palates.