(Seychelles News Agency) - A new programme aimed at reducing food waste at tourism establishments was launched early this month.

Called “Don’t Waste, Eat”, the programme was initiated after a preliminary research found that food waste is a big problem in Seychelles -- a 115-island archipelago in the western Indian Ocean.

The research shows that organic waste makes up 50 percent of Seychelles’ landfills said the vice chairperson of the Seychelles Sustainable Tourism Foundation (SSTF), Diana Körner.

“By reducing the amount of food waste and ideally strengthening and fostering local production, we can achieve many positive results in terms of reducing carbon emissions related to food transportation and rotting on the landfill, but also save costs,” said Körner.

The research, a baseline study on food production carried out by a UniSey graduate in environmental science, Rosetta Alcindor, further showed that on average a hotel in Seychelles produces 846 g of food waste per client daily.

Körner said that despite some composting activities or partnerships with local farmers, the large majority of food waste gets thrown away.

“With 350,000 tourist arrivals per year, this is a substantial impact on our natural environment, the climate and also a large financial loss for hotels and restaurants,” said Körner.

A 20-percent reduction in food waste can be achieved by giving training to hotels and restaurants in Seychelles. Partnering with Betterfly Tourism, a French software editor, the tourism foundation will be giving a two-day on-site training session to the staff of interested hotels and restaurants.

The session will help the kitchen and service staff to measure and analyse food waste with the software EDGAR® and jointly come up with reduction and management measures. The aim of this online application is to follow the amount of food waste and the associated cost of the restaurants.

“Fed by data like weighting of several types -- leftover, preparation, bread for example -- the restaurant can identify the source of its losses, the associated costs and then build its own action plan to reduce both of them and to make informed decisions on reduction measures,” said Körner.

The action plans will be periodically reviewed every three to six months to follow the progress with software.

Körner added that examples of good practices are also included into EDGAR® to help the chef and staff and that cost related to food waste can be decreased by $1.85 (SCR25).

To be part of the training, the establishment will have to sign-up for a one year programme. Interested parties can contact the foundation at office.sstf@gmail.com for more details.

“A series of pilot training has been conducted at Hotel l’Archipel and Constance Lemuria on Praslin, as well as Eden Bleu Hotel. The three hotels emphasised the positive impacts that the training brought to them,” said Körner.

She told SNA that the foundation wishes to enrol as many hotels and restaurants as possible to “jointly reduce the pressure on our landfill, raise awareness and find collective solutions for the food waste problem in Seychelles.”

Beyond the training, the programme foresees to foster cooperation among hoteliers and restaurant owners. It will create an enabling environment for food waste and local food supply solutions e.g. composting clusters, food waste collection services, partnerships with local farmers and possibly donation schemes.