A recap of The PLEDGE on Food Waste’s GSTC members’ webinar, featuring Open Revenue Consulting and Hotel Cap Negret
Hotel food waste reduction has stopped being a “nice to have” sustainability initiative and become a genuine operational and financial priority. Rising food costs, new legislation, and guests who expect proof — not promises — of sustainability are all pushing hotels across Spain and Latin America to act now.
That was the starting point for a recent GSTC members’ webinar hosted in Spanish, where Cristina Blaj — Founder and CEO of Open Revenue Consulting and an accredited consultant for food waste certification in hospitality through The PLEDGE on Food Waste — was joined by Ricardo Sánchez González, General Manager of Hotel Cap Negret in Altea, Alicante, to share a real, twelve-month implementation story.
Here are the key takeaways hoteliers, F&B managers, and sustainability leads should take from it.
The Business Case for Hotel Food Waste Reduction
Cristina opened by framing the moment hospitality finds itself in: structural cost pressure across food, energy, and labour, compounded by inflation running well above average revenue growth in markets like Spain. At the same time, new legislation is introducing formal obligations around food waste prevention.
Her point was simple — treated correctly, that legal pressure becomes a strategic opportunity. Effective hotel food waste reduction isn’t only an environmental win; it’s one of the few levers hotels can pull that directly protects margin in an inflationary environment.
The Results at Hotel Cap Negret
After a year working with Open Revenue Consulting on The PLEDGE framework, Ricardo shared the figures behind their hotel food waste reduction results — figures that make the business case concrete:
- Food waste per guest down 36% — from 276 grams to 176 grams per guest, or roughly 80 kg less waste every single day (261 kg/day down to 184 kg/day)
- €46,000 in food cost savings in the first six months of the year alone
- Kitchen preparation waste down 42% — from 84.3 kg/day to 49 kg/day, driven by better cutting techniques, reusing trimmings for stocks, and smarter purchasing
- Dining room waste down 64% — guests are being served more accurately, not less generously
As Ricardo put it, seeing the daily volume in numbers was the wake-up call: “When you see 261 kilos of waste every day, you can hardly believe it.”
The Real Lesson: This Was Never About One Big Fix
The headline numbers matter, but the more useful insight for other operators is how Cap Negret got there — and it wasn’t a single sweeping initiative.
Ricardo was explicit that reducing food waste at scale requires cross-departmental ownership, not just a kitchen directive: “Food waste is not only a kitchen issue. It involves management, finance, HR, marketing, purchasing, and everyone who touches the operation.”
The hotel built what The PLEDGE’s Six Pillars methodology calls a Food Lovers Committee — kitchen staff meeting monthly to review their own numbers, propose ideas, and see the direct impact of small changes. Getting buy-in wasn’t about instructions from the top; it was about participation:
“The key is to involve people, not just instruct them. When the team feels part of the process, they stop seeing it as extra work and start seeing it as their own project.”<
Concretely, that meant things like:
- Reworking high-waste dishes (an oxtail preparation with heavy bone content was reconsidered for lower-waste cuts and cooking methods)
- Turning trimmings, bones, and fish heads into stocks instead of buying flavour concentrates
- Repurposing buffet surplus into staff meals rather than discarding it
- Filming short, informal videos of proper cutting techniques that staff genuinely enjoyed making — and that reinforced the “why” behind the change
And the guest side matters too. Getting diners to take appropriate portions without feeling restricted required tailoring messaging by market — Northern European guests, for example, responded well to direct sustainability messaging, while other markets needed a lighter touch.
Why Small, Repeated Actions Beat Big One-Off Initiatives
If there’s one line that sums up the whole case study, it’s this:
“It is not about one huge item. It is about many small actions, repeated every day, every month, and every year. That is what creates value.”
That’s a useful reframe for any hotel intimidated by the idea of a sustainability certification process. Cap Negret didn’t overhaul its operation overnight — it built a habit of small, repeatable decisions across purchasing, prep, storage, and service, tracked consistently over twelve months.
And crucially, Ricardo was clear that sustainability had to hold up commercially, not just ethically: <cite index=”1-1″>”Sustainability is great, but it also has to be economically sustainable. We’re still a business.”</cite>
What Hotel Food Waste Reduction Requires: 5 Takeaways
Whether you’re a 50-room independent hotel or part of a larger group, the Cap Negret case demonstrates that food waste certification in hospitality isn’t reserved for large chains with dedicated sustainability teams. Successful hotel food waste reduction requires:
- Leadership genuinely believing in the initiative before asking a team to follow it
- A cross-functional committee, not a single “eco champion”
- Consistent, monthly measurement so teams see their own progress
- Guest communication tailored to market expectations
- Patience — the meaningful savings compound over months, not weeks
Want to see what a certification journey could look like for your property? Get in touch with The PLEDGE on Food Waste team to discuss accredited consultancy support and the path to certification. You can also browse our certified pledgers worldwide or read more case studies and blogs like this one.
