Soihtu’s restaurant Ilokivi participates in the Wasteless Food Services in Finland project

News, Restaurant, Sustainability / 31.10.2022

The goal of the Wasteless Food Services in Finland (WFSF) project is to find solutions and good practices to reduce the amount of food waste in private and public food services in Finland. 19 different types of food service operators from different parts of Finland are involved in the project. Restaurant Ilokivi, part of Soihtu Business Unit of JYY, is one of the restaurants selected for the project.

According to a report by the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke), an estimated 61 million kilograms of food waste is generated in Finland per year (11 kg/person). The Wasteless Food Services in Finland project explores how to reduce waste through foresight and planning. The project builds a model for the continuous monitoring of different types of waste (serving, manufacturing, plate scraps and storage waste) in various food services. The project produces new information that will be distributed nationally for the use of public and private food services.

Along Ilokivi, the participants of the project are Á la carte restaurants, service stations, central kitchens and food service providers for various types of educational institutions from all over Finland. In the project, Ilokivi represents a restaurant located in the campus area, open to all, focusing on the lunch meals of students in higher education. Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences JAMK will monitor the implementation of the project in Ilokivi.

In Ilokivi, participation in the Wasteless Food Services in Finland project materializes in two periods of food waste measurement. The first of these will be implemented in the restaurant in November 2022 and the second, a follow-up period, in late spring 2023. At the beginning of year 2023, Ilokivi will participate in development workshops, in which measures relevant to the restaurant will be selected to reduce wastage.

“Ilokivi’s customers have traditionally been interested in the amount of biowaste generated in the restaurant and the restaurant’s responsibility in general. That’s why we have a strong motivation to take part in developing measures to reduce wastage that can be implemented nationwide,” says Ilokivi’s restaurant manager Kati Lemiläinen.

The executive parties of the WFSF project are Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences, Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences, Southeast Finland University of Applied Sciences and Ammattikeittiöosaajat ry (Professional Kitchen Experts’ Association). The implementation period of the project is 1 December 2021 – 30 November 2023.

Sources:
Wasteless Food Services in Finland project (Seamk).
Available online on Seamk’s page (in Finnish). Read on 28 October 2022

Silvennoinen, K., Nisonen, S. and Lahti, L. 2019. Food waste from catering services: amount of waste 2018–2019 and development of monitoring. Natural resources and bioeconomy research 1/2020. Natural Resources Center. Helsinki. 45 p.
Available online as a PDF publication (in Finnish). Read 28.10.2022