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Should restaurants fine customers who waste food?

By | February 18, 2013, 4:00 AM PST

If you go to Hachikyo, a seafood restaurant in Sapporo, Japan, make sure to go hungry. Not only because their bowl of rice with salmon roe is all-you-can eat (and looks amazing) but also because if you don’t finish your meal you’ll get slapped with a fine.

Midori Yokoyama, writing for the Japanese blog Gold Rush, reports (thanks to the English translation from Rocket News):

According to the explanation in the menu, the working conditions for fishermen are harsh and so dangerous that it’s not unknown for lives to be lost. To show our gratitude and appreciation for the food they provide, it is forbidden to leave even one grain of rice in your bowl. Customers who do not finish their tsukko meshi must give a donation.

Kind of harsh, but completely understandable. And, at least according to anecdotal evidence, it’s working. Yokoyama’s waitress told him: “Hardly anyone leaves their tsukko meshi unfinished.”

While this restaurant uses the fine to show respect to fisherman, could restaurants lead the way in the fight against food waste with a simple fine for not finishing your meal? In Washington, D.C., where I live, the city imposed a plastic bag tax of 5 cents per bag at grocery stores. It’s a minimal amount but it’s dramatically reduced plastic bag use in the city.

Food waste, in the United States alone is a major, $165 billion a year, problem. Restaurants, of course, aren’t the only places where food waste happens, but they do account for about 15 percent of all food waste. Putting a price on wasting food could curb that. On the other hand, if it’s not implemented on a large scale, a restaurant that leads the way on a food waste tax would have to offer irresistible food, like Hachikyo, or risk losing customers.

[Via Gold Rush, Rocket News, Discovery News]

Photo: Gold Rush

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Tyler Falk

About Tyler Falk

Tyler Falk is a contributing editor for SmartPlanet.

Tyler Falk

Tyler Falk

Contributing Editor

Tyler Falk freelance journalist based in Washington, D.C. Previously, he was with Smart Growth America and Grist. He holds a degree from Goshen College.

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Tyler Falk

Tyler Falk

Tyler does not have financial holdings that would influence how or what he covers.

He writes for SmartPlanet and is not an employee of CBS.

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+3 Votes
+ -
Food waste
In a country where obesity is a major health issue,to fine people for not finishing their food is ridiculous. Yes,food waste is an issue. But mainly from restaurants preparing too much and having to throw it away at the end of the day. I would think that most people who don't finish their food take it home for later. Besides,you paid for that food. What you choose to do with it is up to you.
Posted by elvisfan0108
18th Feb
-4 Votes
+ -
Not really
In Germany there is a law against it. The police may be called and one would be fined. Just because you paid for it does not give you the right to waste it. The system has to make it available to you. The amount of food being wasted, as evidenced in US TV shows, is absolutely scandalous. In my religion Jainism, if practiced as preached, one is supposed to rinse one's plate with water and drink it. There are several benefits from this. One you never waste food. Secondly you can never overeat. Thirdly the dishes, even if left unwashed overnight do not create health problems.
Posted by pmshah@...
18th Feb
+3 Votes
+ -
Tempest in a teapot.
If this was a regular restaurant, I'd say this was completely silly. However, this was billed as an "all you can eat" establishment, meaning that patrons are free to decide how big a portions to serve themselves and consume, and anything left on their plate truly would be waste of the customer's creation. Actually, there's probably far less waste in an "all you can eat" establishment than a traditional restaurant.

Now, the part about "respect to fishermen" is silly. (I doubt the fishermen would feel that way; Less fish consumed, or wasted means less income for fishermen) It's all about the restaurants bottom line.

And being 'fined" in an "all you can eat" establishment isn't new. I've heard of that right here in America.
Posted by JohnMcGrew@...
Updated - 18th Feb
+1 Vote
+ -
Far less waste in this establishment, but not others.
You're spot on, John, about it being acceptable to insist that a customer not order more than they can consume in an all-you-can-eat restaurant, but aside from those that do, I would suspect that there's more waste in other all-you-can-eat establishments, as the customers have nothing to lose by ordering more than they can eat.
Posted by omb00900@...
18th Feb
+1 Vote
+ -
I'd like to see the food police do other things.
If we are going to mess with people we might as well mess with everybody.

Lets fine restaurants that serve meals that have calorie counts that exceed government recommendations.

A $200 per day fine for every dinner item on the menu over 1,000 calories.

Desserts are unhealthy to begin with, so another $200 fine for every dessert item on the menu.

Breakfast and lunch items cannot exceed 500 calories or a $200 fine.

Now if people order multiple items from an approved menu so as to exceed the RDA for calories, they get fined. Lets set that fine at $50 a meal.

The big question is, who gets all the fine money? We are talking huge money here folks.

On the surface we could say it will go to healthy eating programs and food addition therapy. That is a happy, feel good reason to control peoples lives.

But we all know that the money will end up being spent on a bridge to nowhere or an international airport in a rural Pennsylvania county.

Just as happened with the tobacco industry fines.
Posted by Hates Idiots
18th Feb
+2 Votes
+ -
RE: Food Police
Been talking to Bloomberg eh? [;>} ROTFL
Posted by GregGold
18th Feb
+1 Vote
+ -
Nice.
I have been working hard to learn how to see from other peoples perspective.

How did I do?

Did I get the mind set correct?

It is always about the money. Right?
Posted by Hates Idiots
Updated - 18th Feb
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Nice
Absolutely spot on!! I think you've got the process down!
Posted by GregGold
18th Feb
+2 Votes
+ -
Ironic Tone?
You seem to be using an ironic tone for your reply. In this case, the restaurant gets the money and presumably pays it to a fisherman's charity. While I am against wasting food, the example of this restaurant is too extreme.

The lesson taught in boot camp for food was to take what you can eat and eat all that you take. In college, the campus eatery put food scraps and donated to a local pig farmer to slop his hogs. I am not afraid to get a take out box, doggy bag, for my left overs and enjoy them later.

As for people who over eat and have become morbidly obese, I think they have enough to deal with as far as health issues go. The phrase "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink" comes to mind when it comes to helping people; they generally are either happy the way they are or they are so daunted by what needs to be done that they don't do anything. It comes down to inertia, an object in motion tends to stay in motion and an object at rest tends to stay at rest; people are their own motivators or demotivators.
Posted by sboverie
18th Feb
+2 Votes
+ -
All you can eat buffets
In UK, lots of All-You-Can-Eat buffet restaurants went bust because the customers waste so much food that they never had intention to finish. It is sad, because the All-You-Can-Eat buffet is good for both customers & restaurants if only the customers take only what they intend to finish.
Posted by Edwina Lee
18th Feb
+3 Votes
+ -
The secret of all you can eat.
Rule #1 is no cafeteria style trays. That encourages piling on too much food.

#2 Small plates to force multiple trips and 1 plate at a time limits. Same with deserts. 1 portion at a time limit. Smaller bowls for self serve items like ice cream. The lack of trays helps with this because people will not normally spoon on excess food if they have to hand carry everything.

The bottom line is people will eat less if it is inconvenient to get more food.

Heavy eaters are less likely to return to a place with no trays, small plates and a one plate at a time limit. Repeat visit by those people are what waste food and kills an all you can eat restaurant.
Posted by Hates Idiots
Updated - 18th Feb
+2 Votes
+ -
Fines for leaving food
Given the portion size in many US restaurants I would think this would be a crazy policy. For an "all you can eat", then making folks pay more if they take more and waste it maybe isn't a bad idea. But if I order a "normal" meal while traveling and can only eat 50 or 60% because it is HUGE, should I get fined - no I don't think so. How about options for smaller portions or paying 50% for a 1/2 serving size as a better idea.
Posted by bliebler
18th Feb
+1 Vote
+ -
Food Fines for over eating?
Is it not enough that you are taxed and levied at the grocery store as well as a restaurant? Each person knows how much they can consume safely. The tax I mean is over eating to feel full. North America is guilty of over producing food! If food police are going to fine you for leaving too much on your plate, please do consider they should also head directly to the business, kitchens and cooks who prepare the food, also the growers of the food. Please be realistic, know what your body tells you.
Posted by Welsey
18th Feb
+1 Vote
+ -
Are you guys serious?
Is there anything you guys don't want our government to put it's nose in? I mean really, it's just astounding you allow people to wipe their butt without guidance. Unless of course, you want to count how many squares they use and fine them for their carbon footprint if they have a particularly messy occurrence.
Posted by copracr
18th Feb
0 Votes
+ -
RE: Serious
I believe you'll find it's tongue in cheek...and simply following the logic of the current party in charge of the country and the state of New York...
Posted by GregGold
18th Feb
+3 Votes
+ -
What a great idea for governments everywhere...
Instead of restaurants imposing penalties, the government to take up the idea, and help to solve 3 problems with one bill/law.

The bill should propose that, the government supervise meal times and snack times at every home, since, that's where most food would go to waste. Thus, the government could have a one agent from the "Food Waste Police Force", present at meal time and snack time in every home. Anybody that dumps any kind of food into the trash or into the waste disposer, would get a penalty of $5 per family for each violation.

That would create millions of jobs with millions of food police agents, thus helping to solve the jobs situation. It would also help towards balancing the budget with the amount of revenue raised. And, food waste would be cut down tremendously.

However, with people being "forced" to each everything on their plates, we'd end up with more people getting overweight. But, no problem there either, since, the revenue collected by the food police, could help pay for exercise machines, which would in turn require that, another government agency be set as the "exercise police", to make sure that, families are exercising.

That would be the ideal situation for liberal government, since they could then monitor everything that all families are up to.
Posted by adornoe
18th Feb
-1 Votes
+ -
Fortunately not such a new idea
One of the typical take more than you can eat situations are salad buffets. To me, since years that I have known the "Granpa Restaurant" in Cocoa, Fl. I had welcomed their motto which goes something like "eat as much as you want, but get fined 2 Dollars if you leave food on the plate". I had recommended that policy to several of my local places, but no one had enough guts to follow that idea
Posted by lupuss
18th Feb
+3 Votes
+ -
restaurant schemes
heavy eaters will return to places wherethere are no trays and small plates. They are not lazy. They are perfectly happy to go for seconds or thirds. etc.

As for small desert bowls, just use a soup bowl for your ice cream. That is how to get around that, if you just have to have a big helping.

As far as the specific item shown, roe on rice.. OK well any "all you can eat" thing like that is a risk because what the restaurant may do, is say "AYCE" and then load up that bowl to the top with rice and only a small, thin layer of roe.

You can see the rice through the thin layer of roe right in the picture..

and then what some people do, is they eat the roe or the fish meat fish off the rice, and leave the rice, and go back for more, because it is AYCE.

They waste the rice, and thwart the restaurant's scheme to load up the customer with rice instead of the better food like the roe or meat, and hold back to small portions of the better stuff. The restaurant does that obviously because rice is cheap.

If I am going to eat a bowl of stuff like that picture for lunch, I do not want it to be 95% rice. no matter how much I like rice, it has too many carbs.

There was a sushi place that had a sign on the wall "this is sushi, not sashimi. $3 charge for rice left on plate" -meaning the big chunk of it. Their sushi was good though, thick pieces of fish. What I hate is again the huge rice with a paper thin piece of raw fish on it, then calling it sushi.

There was an all you can eat fajita place that used to just about ram rice and beans down people's throats. Once they went in and paid, they were trapped by deceit. You'd get the fajitas, and they would come with the usual side dish of rice and beans and pico.. But when you went back for seconds etc., they would pile a mountain of rice and beans (but no pico and guac) on the plate - with the fajitas, and then subsequently refuse to re-up your fajitas unless you returned to the counter with a clean plate indicated you had eaten the enforced excessive rice and beans, whether you wanted them or not. I got nothing against rice and beans either, but hey, it is AYCE FAJITAS, not all you can eat rice and beans with a few little strips of fajia meat for appearance.
I do not defend the following, but what started happening was that people would feel cheated by this trickery and scrape the un-asked-for items off the plate onto the table under paper napkins, to the floor under the table, into a glass, etc. in an attempt to receive the proper amount of fajitas as promised in the advertising. AYCE fajitas =|= AYCE rice and beans.

Any time I go to an AYCE place, I arrive hungry but I know I am going to have at most 2 plates. I choose carefully, for the better vegetables and above all the best meat, and avoid bread, rice, refried beans, tortillas, and other fill-er-up foods as much as possible. You betcha I trim fat off the meat as well because that is not for me to eat but rather it is food waste that was not removed in the kitchen. Often the servers come around "pushing" hot buttered rolls, etc. Obviously - to fill up the customers on the low budget instead of having the customers fill up on their choice of meat. The same goes for anywhere from Golden Corral to Fogo de Chao, where they hate me because I patiently wait for the filet mignion and lamb to come around, avoiding the extremely tempting salad bar full of breads, cheeses, veggies, and other delights. I treat that as 'dessert' -if I have room. Sorry for obscene $40 I am there for the best meat only.
Posted by opcom
18th Feb
+2 Votes
+ -
A wasteful gluttonous society
Having spent my college summers working as a bus-boy and dishwasher in a "high-class" seafood restaurant, I can attest to how much incredible food waste occurs and it occurred to me what amount of fuel, labor and natural resources were consumed to deliver a plate of fine dining to a customer only to have most of it thrown out in the trash (well...actually sold to pig farmers - at least the pigs enjoyed it.)
Posted by anthonymaw
18th Feb
+2 Votes
+ -
Absolutely Absurd!
What if I go to eat there and discover that the food is inedible? The chef burned/undercooked, included too much of this or too little of that, or otherwise ruined that particular dish? What if it's simply not the way my mother prepared it?! What if I discover that I'm allergic to an ingredient? What if I find the smell just a little bit "off"? What about the waiter/waitress/bus boy or the restaurant itself smells funny. How about the other customers? Are they rude/loud/obnoxious/children/drunk/sneezing/coughing/smoking? 'Cmon! We've ALL been in that situation!

There are so many reasons a customer might not finish their dish in ANY restaurant I couldn't even begin to count them all. Try to fine me, and you might find yourself without being paid at all. Not to mention a return customer, or my friends as customers. I like to share restaurant experiences, both good and bad, with others.
Posted by roselaurel
18th Feb
+3 Votes
+ -
this might be ok if
I'm also allowed to fine the restaurant if they bring me more than I can eat.
Posted by frylock
18th Feb
-1 Votes
+ -
food by weight...
Some restaurants sell food by weight...even some all you can eat do this for togo menus.
That would be fine and you could fill up and watch your consumption at the same time
Posted by harleybud73
18th Feb
0 Votes
+ -
Tax fat
The worst waste of food is eating too much. So put the scales at the entrance: if you are overweight, just pay and leave. Good for your bottom and for their bottomline.
Posted by praoss
Updated - 18th Feb
+2 Votes
+ -
The purpose of a restaurant
When I go out to eat, I go out to enjoy the experience; dining out is a means of taking pleasure. A true restaranteur knows that he/she is in the pleasure-giving business. If some restaurant takes the attitude that I'm there to satisfy their arbitrary rules, that restaurant gets visited no more.
Posted by firstaborean
18th Feb
-4 Votes
+ -
Make Them Pay For Waste.
As a race, we're pretty wasteful and there are those very few who actually care about the earth and it's precious resources. Food is one of them, to which we as humans inevitably waste a lot of, to which we suck more out of the planet. This plan of making your customers pay will make them think about what to buy and be smart with their cash. Also, help lower our wastefulness on food and help put more green back into our economy.
Posted by Endzorax7520
18th Feb
+2 Votes
+ -
More politically correct nonsense
If there is one thing that the politically correct can never get enough of, it is telling everyone else what to do--if not for the earth than for the sake of the children. There are a host of more important concerns on this planet than fretting over someone not eating their spinach.
That would be the next fine to levy on some service provided to the unwashed masses, fining teachers for an inability/unwillingness to educate the nations children? How about employees at the drivers license office providing slow and surely service in processing a drivers license? Better yet, the police for not being at the scene of a murder before that murder is committed? And that list can be just as long as the list of the misbehavior's of mankind.
History has proven out that the very concept of compelling our neighbor to live their lives according to the fad of the moment accomplishes nothing but social chaos.
Posted by anthony703
19th Feb
+1 Vote
+ -
let us not forget
Many cities have organizations such as "Second Helpings" (in my area) that will go around and take extra food prepared by restaurants or from grocery stores who have perishable items that are near their date of expiration and use these to feed the poor and hungry whether by hot meal or by food bank before food spoils. As this is a charity organization - it is possible the businesses get tax breaks for their "donations". Part of not being wasteful is to NOT waste. There are also people who compost and some food "waste" goes to this effort. America is a leader in Ingenuity - let us not turn into what is becoming more and more a country who is leader of Belly aching and whining.
Posted by llandau@...
21st Feb
+1 Vote
+ -
givers not takers
From day one, this nation has been characterized as a nation of givers--not takers. That characterization appears to now be in jeopardy as the ranks of the "poor" have now been expanded to the point that the U.S. now has the richest and fattest poor people in the world. Try and find abject poverty in this country and find a big fat zero, look for relative poverty and there you are.
"Second Helpings" and "Second Harvest" represent what has been right with this nation all along, voluntary organizations that do what they do out of the sense of charity and personal responsibility, not a mandate handed down from on high by a bureaucrat that has neither interest of experience in solving the problem.
The whole argument about waste in this nation is an identification of its absolute success as a political economy. And those nations that have neither a pot to pee in or window to throw it out of, a commentary on the disaster of their respective political economies. I would much rather have our problems than theirs.
Posted by anthony703
Updated - 22nd Feb
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