Hyundai Green Food Achieves Additional 100 Tons Reduction in Food Waste from Group Catering Last Year

Minimizing Waste Through Menu Pre-Reservation and Leftover Analysis
Employee Participation Programs Conducted with the Korea Environment Corporation

Hyundai Green Food, a comprehensive food company affiliated with Hyundai Department Store Group, announced on the 6th that it reduced food waste generated from its group catering business sites by about 100 tons compared to 2023.

This achievement resulted from various food waste reduction activities conducted independently and the ‘Zero Waste Project’ carried out in collaboration with the Korea Environment Corporation. The 100 tons of food waste reduced by Hyundai Green Food is equivalent to reducing 170 tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Hyundai Green Food minimized surplus production by enabling pre-reservation of ready meal corner menus through its own application, and significantly reduced leftover food by composing menus based on preference surveys and leftover characteristics analyses conducted at each business site.

In particular, after signing a ‘Memorandum of Understanding for the Operation of Eco-friendly Catering Sites and the Establishment of a Resource Circulation Society’ with the Korea Environment Corporation in June last year, Hyundai Green Food has carried out various eco-friendly activities aimed at creating leftover-free cafeterias. A representative example is the ‘Leftover Zero Point’ system introduced last year. This system awards points to customers who leave no leftovers after meals by tagging their employee ID cards on an NFC reader installed at the exit. These points can be used like cash at the company’s employee mall or in-house cafes. So far, the system has been introduced in about 200 group catering sites, with approximately 20,000 participants.

Last year, Hyundai Green Food also held a food waste reduction competition targeting about 500 group catering sites operated in collaboration with the Korea Environment Corporation, the first of its kind in the industry. Outstanding business sites were selected based on leftover reduction rates and increases in Leftover Zero Point accumulation rates. The top-performing site received the Minister of Environment Award, and two excellent sites were awarded the Korea Environment Corporation Chairman’s Award.

Additionally, to reduce carbon emissions at group catering sites, Hyundai Green Food provides low-carbon menus using plant-based proteins, which emit less carbon during production than conventional meat, twice a month. A dedicated research team has developed 101 menu items using plant-based proteins, such as meatballs, hamburger steaks, and vegetarian dumplings, which are offered as catering menus.

Furthermore, to minimize environmental pollution caused by food waste, Hyundai Green Food is increasing the installation of eco-friendly food waste processors at each group catering site. The company explained that the introduction of these processors reduced carbon emissions from food waste processing by about 41% compared to 2023.

Starting this year, Hyundai Green Food plans to analyze and manage leftover data from nationwide business sites on a monthly basis and develop and implement an automatic menu composition program based on leftover data.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.