How smaller plates reduced hotel food waste by 20%

About 1.3 billion tons of food are thrown out every year, in grocery stores, at home, in restaurants and hotels.¹ To figure out whether nudges could reduce food waste by hotel patrons, researchers set up a collaboration with restaurants in Nordic Choice Hotels to test two different nudges. The first intervention was reducing the size of the plates used by customers, and the second was signage that encouraged customers to get additional servings. Additionally, an observational study was conducted in the remainder of hotels that were not in the treatment or control groups. Both nudges resulted in a roughly 20% reduction of food waste, and the plate size treatment findings were supported in the observational study.