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How Edge Impact and Restaurant Association of New Zealand are tackling food waste

The Kai Keepers initiative, launched by Edge Impact and the Restaurant Association, tackles Aotearoa’s significant food waste challenge, with nearly 25,000 tonnes generated annually—61% of which is avoidable.

Kai Keepers Pilot: Fighting Food Waste in Aotearoa

How Edge Impact and the Restaurant Association of New Zealand are tackling food waste 

Each year, Aotearoa’s cafes and restaurants generate nearly 25,000 tonnes of food waste, with 61% of it entirely avoidable.  

When food ends up in landfill, it’s not just an environmental loss, it’s a missed opportunity to enhance sustainability within the hospitality industry and boost financial outcomes for operators. 

After two years of measurement and testing, the programme’s third year shifted focus to communicating the results, engaging stakeholders and translating these insights into practical guidance.

Key deliverables year 3 - Scale up to industry

Presentation of results to participating businesses  

Hosted industry webinar for New Zealand and Australia  

The Approach

To tackle this pressing issue and generate actionable data across the industry, the Restaurant Association, in conjunction with Edge Impact, launched the Kai Keepers pilot. This initiative set out to transform food waste practices across cafés and restaurants in Auckland, Bay of Plenty and Waikato. 

Funded by New Zealand’s Ministry for the Environment, Kai Keepers supports hospitality businesses to reduce food waste, helping operators achieve sustainability goals while unlocking measurable financial savings. 

The two-and-a-half-year programme engaged 120 participants and was delivered in two stages. The first stage established a baseline, measuring food waste volumes and identifying key drivers across participating businesses. The second stage tested a series of targeted interventions designed to reduce food waste in real-world settings. 

These interventions focused on four key areas: 

Adjusting portion sizes to reduce plate, preparation and spoilage waste  

Reusing preparation waste to create new dishes  

Upselling at-risk stock to prevent spoilage  

Redirecting unsold food for staff use  

In its third year, the programme shifted from testing interventions to communicating results and enabling wider industry adoption. This phase focused on analysing results from across both stages to assess the effectiveness of each intervention and understand the conditions that support successful implementation. 

The resulting report draws on both quantitative and qualitative evidence to measure changes in food waste, compare outcomes across businesses and evaluate intervention performance. Insights were also shared directly with participating businesses and presented through industry engagement activities, including a webinar for New Zealand and Australia, to support broader awareness and uptake. 

Together, these efforts provide a strong evidence base and a clear pathway for scaling effective food waste reduction practices across the hospitality sector. 

The Result

Reducing food waste delivers clear financial benefits. The average hospitality business could potentially save $5,520 per year through improved food waste practices.  

Across all initiatives, food waste per cover reduced from 134 grams to 112 grams, representing a 16.4 percent reduction across the programme. While this may seem small at an individual level, it becomes significant at scale. 

Each month, this reduction equates to more than 5 tonnes of food waste avoided, preventing over 6 tonnes of emissions and delivering meaningful cost savings for participating businesses. 

All four interventions contributed to this outcome, with the strongest results achieved where actions directly targeted the source of waste. 

Smaller and flexible portion sizes delivered the strongest overall performance, reducing total food waste by 20.6 percent per cover. This was driven by a 43 percent reduction in preparation waste and a 33 percent reduction in spoilage. 

Reusing preparation waste to create new dishes reduced total food waste by 17.5 percent, with a 55 percent reduction in prep waste. This intervention highlighted the value of rethinking kitchen processes and using ingredients more efficiently. 

Upselling at-risk stock achieved a 20 percent reduction in total food waste per cover and delivered the largest proportional reduction in spoilage, cutting it by 50 percent. This demonstrated the effectiveness of engaging front-of-house staff in waste reduction efforts  

Redirecting unsold food reduced total food waste by 17 percent per cover, with 70 percent of venues reporting an overall reduction in waste. On average, 704 grams of food per day was redirected per venue, helping recover value that would otherwise be lost 

Importantly, improvements were observed across all major waste categories, including preparation, plate and spoilage waste. Even businesses that did not implement targeted interventions reduced waste through increased awareness and measurement alone. 

Interventions worked best when they aligned with existing workflows, and combining them increased impact. Messaging also influenced uptake, with staff responding more to framing around quality, efficiency and ingredient care. Peer learning further strengthened outcomes by supporting knowledge sharing between businesses. 

The findings provide a clear pathway for scaling impact across the sector. This includes expanding the most effective interventions, strengthening industry engagement and embedding food waste reduction into everyday operations. 

Focus Group Participants

Mineral

For more information on the Kai Keepers programme, visit Restaurant Association Kai Keepers Programme

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Kai Keepers Pilot: Fighting Food Waste in Aotearoa (Year 3)

The Sustainable Procurement Toolkit empowers businesses and governments to drive ethical, sustainable procurement practices.

Discover how the Sustainable Procurement Toolkit for Eco Choice Aotearoa empowers businesses and governments to adopt ethical, sustainable procurement practices with practical tools and clear guidance.

The Sustainable Procurement Toolkit for Eco Choice Aotearoa

Empowering procurement leaders to harness their buying power

Eco Choice Aotearoa is the country’s official ecolabel, recognising businesses that prioritise environmental and social responsibility, and empowering customers to shop with confidence.  

To drive further impact in the procurement space, the opportunity arose to create a digital toolkit that would influence procurement professionals in governments and businesses to follow best practices.

The toolkit needed to be educational and practical, and clearly establish the vital role of procurement in closing the sustainability gap for businesses.

As part of the project, we also wanted to provide an opportunity for procurement leaders to pledge their support in advancing sustainable and ethical procurement practices in Aotearoa New Zealand. 

Key Deliverables

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To achieve the desired outcomes, the project leveraged expertise from various services at Edge, as well as partnering with the New Zealand Procurement Excellence Forum.

Through stakeholder workshops and surveys during the immersion phase, we refined our approach to addressing key procurement opportunities, which informed the content wireframe for the toolkit.

Aligned with the ISO 20400:2017 Sustainable Procurement – Guidance Principles, we ensured the toolkit was clear, actionable, and crafted with best practices in mind.

Our brand and communications specialists embarked on a creative exploration to develop a unique visual identity for the toolkit, ensuring it aligned with Eco Choice Aotearoa’s brand.

This cohesive design shaped the interactive digital features, allowing users to engage with insights and advice most relevant to them.

From success stories to highlighting the role of ecolabels at each procurement stage, the toolkit helps procurement professionals understand how their purchasing decisions can drive positive outcomes for both people and the environment.

The Sustainable Procurement Toolkit was launched across multiple channels, including social media, member newsletters, and key industry events like the WasteMINZ conference, New Zealand's largest body for the waste, resource recovery, and contaminated land sectors.

Feedback from diverse industries has been highly positive, with users highlighting how the toolkit has empowered them to navigate procurement confidently.

Since the Toolkit's launch in May 2024, the completion rate has remained strong, indicating continued, meaningful engagement with the entire toolkit.

As such, the project has firmly positioned Eco Choice Aotearoa as a thought leader in sustainable procurement, sparking further engagement with their programs and encouraging collaboration across key stakeholders.

It has also strengthened the ongoing partnership between Edge and Eco Choice, paving the way for future initiatives and workshops aimed at fostering a more sustainable future across industries.

Edge isn’t your typical consultancy. They understand the power of combining science, strategy, and storytelling to deliver maximum impact for their clients. 

From technical experts and project managers, to creative and marcomms teams; everyone we’ve worked with at Edge has been a highly-skilled rockstar.

We’re thrilled with the final product and how it’s been received by our intended audience. We look forward to many more successful collaborations with the Edge Impact team. 

Explore the Sustainable Procurement Toolkit for Government and Businesses today.

Each year, Aotearoa’s cafes and restaurants generate nearly 25,000 tonnes of food waste, with 61% of it entirely avoidable (based on previous industry research). 

When food ends up in landfill, it’s not just an environmental loss—it’s a missed opportunity to enhance sustainability within the hospitality industry and boost financial outcomes for operators.

This data provided a starting point for the Kai Keepers initiative, which aims to refine these figures and drive impactful change.

Key deliverables year 2 - pilot and report in progress

To tackle this pressing issue and and generate actionable data across the industry, the Restaurant Association in conjunction with Edge Impact launched the Kai Keepers pilot, a groundbreaking initiative aimed at transforming food waste practices across cafes and restaurants in Auckland and the Bay of Plenty. 

Funded by New Zealand’s Ministry for the Environment, Kai Keepers empowers operators to reduce food waste, helping businesses achieve their sustainability goals while also unlocking significant financial savings.

Ultimately, this initiative strengthens the entire industry’s commitment to sustainable practices.

This two-and-a-half-year pilot programme involves 120 participants and is divided into two stages: a ‘baseline’ assessment to measure businesses’ food waste and a pilot to test various ‘interventions’ aimed at reducing food waste. 

For the first phase, participants were engaged in a one-week baseline conducted over the first half of 2024 where they measured their food waste during specific time intervals.

The second step, currently under implementation, involves participants taking part in a four-week pilot, commencing at various intervals between August 2024 and April 2025. The pilots' trial different interventions to identify the most impactful strategies for reducing food waste.

This approach ensures a thorough examination of food waste behaviours and the effectiveness of interventions across varying timeframes.

This project involved two key branding and communications deliverables: 

A branding exercise that captured the spirit of Kai Keepers and resonated with New Zealand’s cultural essence

Along with the design of physical assets like posters, business cards, and table talkers. 

These served as crucial touchpoints in each food waste intervention.

Edge Impact’s brand and communications specialists drew on insights from the intervention phases to craft a localised and culturally sensitive brand, subtly nodding to the Restaurant Association’s identity through shared colours, fonts, and illustrative styles.

Beyond reducing waste, Kai Keepers recognises the unique connection between hospitality businesses and their customers. By engaging customers directly, the programme extends its influence beyond the industry, fostering a culture of sustainability that reaches diners and inspires change at a community level.

During the first phase, 120 participant restaurant and cafes across Auckland, Bay of Plenty and Waikato took part in a baseline assessment over a seven-day period where more than 13 tonnes of food waste were generated from the preparation of 108,730 meals. 


According to self-reported data from participants, the food waste was generated from food preparation (44%), plate waste (43%) and spoilage (13%).   
The baseline provided invaluable data, with a level of detail that has not been collected before.

Five Key insights included:
 
1. Staff involvement: Participants reported that business owners, managers, and staff were eager to adopt and enhance waste reduction practices, showcasing the industry's growing commitment to sustainability. 


2. Food waste environmental impact: Over 13 tonnes of food waste was recorded from 108,730 covers. This waste resulted in more than 15 tonnes of CO2-e emissions, the equivalent of 70,840 kilometers travelled in a medium petrol-powered car. This is the same distance as travelling from Auckland to Wellington around 110 times. 


3. The cost of food waste: The 13 tonnes of food waste is estimated to have cost businesses a combined $102,000 in lost value over the seven-day period based on food purchasing and waste management costs. 


4. Average waste per cover: Each meal contributes an average of 171 grams of food waste, costing approximately $0.94 per cover.


5. Top wasted items: The top five food waste items nominated by participants were sauces such as ketchup and pesto, fresh and/or cooked vegetables, garnishes and side salads, meat, and eggs (including shells and cooked eggs). 
 
Using these insights, Edge facilitated a focus group with participants to co-design four targeted food waste reduction interventions. These interventions are currently being piloted at different intervals between August 2024 and February 2025. 


While the pilot phase will continue throughout the year, the Restaurant Association plans to scale up to a nationwide programme in 2025, ensuring that these tested solutions can drive widespread impact. 

Marisa Bidois,
Chief Executive of the Restaurant Association of New Zealand

“Working in collaboration with Edge has been invaluable to this project. Their  technical expertise and strategic insights have been key to setting up and implementing the rigorous behaviour change interventions and control trials.


Together, our partnership is key to developing practical solutions that will contribute positively to restaurants and cafes bottom line, while also driving long-lasting environmental impact across the entire hospitality industry.”

"We got great local support, we did a little social media push, which went well and people were keen to know more. It's a win-win because customers realise others aren't doing it." 

 For more information on the Kai Keepers programme, visit the Restaurant Association's Kai Keepers Programme.

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