It’s a week until your group sustainability report goes to the board. You’ve got a food waste figure from every property; some came from scales, some from weekly tallies, and a few from a head chef’s best guess. The total might look tidy, but how defensible is it if you can’t say with confidence where each number came from?

Being able to stand behind those numbers is getting more important as the legal backdrop evolves. EU food waste regulations now include binding 2030 reduction targets for member states under the revised Waste Framework Directive, with each country responsible for turning them into national measures.

This guide explains what the revised Directive means for people like you and teams like yours, including how national rules can differ and how Orbisk, a food waste intelligence platform, can help groups build a consistent measurement approach across working kitchens.

What the revised Waste Framework Directive actually requires, and from whom

Quick heads-up: this is the most regulation-heavy part of the guide. We’ll minimise the legal language without losing the facts. The rest is much more practical.

The European Union’s revised Waste Framework Directive sets two binding food waste reduction targets for member states by 31 December 2030: 

• A 10% reduction in processing and manufacturing
• A 30% per capita reduction jointly across retail, restaurants, food services, and households

By default, both are measured against average food waste generated between 2021 and 2023. And if you’ve seen them described as proposals, that information is now out of date – they became binding member-state targets in October 2025.

Member states must write the Directive into national law by 17 June 2027. While it doesn’t give hotels, restaurants, and caterers their own 10% or 30% quotas, those businesses will face whatever measures their countries use or introduce to hit national targets. So, if you’re responsible for food waste across several markets, you may need to meet different requirements in each one.

Where appropriate, member states must also make sure companies they identify as having a significant role in food waste propose donation agreements with food banks or redistribution organisations.

Tourism gets special treatment, too. By 17 October 2027, the European Commission must introduce a correction factor so changes in visitor numbers don’t distort progress towards the 30% target. It must also review the targets by the end of 2027 and consider future binding targets for 2035.

You may have already seen some related rule changes affect your kitchens. The EU bio-waste collection mandate, for example: since the end of December 2023, member states have had to ensure bio-waste is separated and recycled at source or collected separately.

Note: EU guidance prioritises preventing and redistributing food waste before recycling or recovery options such as composting. Landfill sits at the bottom of the food use and waste hierarchy.

Key Waste Framework Directive dates at a glance

Related regulation: The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is separate from food waste law but covers products such as coffee, cocoa, palm oil, soy, and cattle. It can also affect UK businesses supplying covered products into the European Union. It applies from 30 December 2026 for large and medium operators and 30 June 2027 for most micro and small operators.

How EU targets reach operators through national law

EU member states can choose their own measures to hit the new targets: prevention programmes, donation rules, collection requirements, and potentially measurement or reporting duties for larger food businesses. Their choices shape your obligations.

This table shows how the rules already vary across key hospitality markets in the region:

If you’re running kitchens across several countries, the challenge will be meeting different rules on different timelines. One consistent measurement method across every site gives you a stable base as national requirements change. Orbisk offers that consistency without changing how your teams work. More on that later.

What counts as food waste under EU rules

Under the Waste Framework Directive, food waste means food that has become waste. Simple. EU measurement groups that waste by stage of the food supply chain, with restaurants and food services treated as one stage.

There are no EU reporting categories for prep waste, buffet leftovers, plate waste, or spoilage. Those are operational categories rather than regulatory ones, but they’re useful for showing you where waste comes from:

• Prep waste: food thrown away during preparation
• Buffet waste: food prepared for service but left over
• Plate waste: food returned uneaten by guests
• Spoilage: food discarded because it can no longer be served

Separating waste into those streams (and ideally by ingredient too) is best practice, not an EU requirement. That extra detail helps you compare sites, spot what’s driving waste, and decide what to change first.

For context: around 58 million tonnes of food waste are generated in the EU each year, with restaurants and food services accounting for 12%. Food waste also accounts for about 16% of greenhouse gas emissions from the EU food system and puts pressure on resources such as land and water.

How the EU measures food waste, and what that means for your own data

The EU’s common methodology tells member states how to produce national food waste figures from representative samples. Direct measurement, waste composition analysis, and diaries are all recognised methods for restaurants and food services.

That means manual logs and estimates aren’t automatically a problem under EU rules. A kitchen using diaries isn’t breaking any rules. But national statistics and your own decisions need different things. 

A national sample can tolerate averaging; if you’re trying to cut costs across sites, support a public reduction claim, or answer a national authority, more detailed, consistent data gives you a stronger basis for decisions and a number you can explain with confidence.

That’s where manual logging can fall short:

• Inconsistent categories across sites
• No ingredient-level detail
• No photo record of what was thrown away
• A time lag between disposal and entry

Each gap makes the final number harder to trace and defend. The more assumptions behind it, the harder it is to explain how it was produced when a board, assurance provider, or authority asks.

Same shift, different level of evidence

Building a measurement method that holds up

A strong measurement approach captures waste daily, categorises it by ingredient, separates waste streams, and keeps an evidence record for every entry. These aren’t EU requirements for individual kitchens; just useful best practice when you need consistent data across sites.

Manual logging depends on staff having the time and memory to record waste accurately. Research in hotel and healthcare kitchens has found that staff-operated food waste tracking can underreport waste when entries depend on people consistently weighing and recording it.

Capture at the moment of disposal records waste automatically, as it’s thrown away, building an evidence trail at the same time. Orbisk uses that moment to close the four manual logging gaps above.

Capture at the moment of disposal closes the manual logging gaps

Once food mixes together in a bin, identifying exactly what’s discarded gets harder. Capture it as it goes in, and each disposal is recorded while the detail’s still there.

Orbisk is a food waste intelligence platform built around that timing. Its AI imaging recognition identifies 800+ ingredients at ~90% accuracy. Every disposal gets a photo record, and each entry records the ingredient, weight, waste stream, container type, and location. It’s also time-stamped, so you can see and show exactly where a reported total came from.

Kitchen staff don’t need to change how they work, either. Capture happens as food is thrown away, building the evidence during normal service.

That closes the four manual logging gaps above: consistent categories, item-level detail, visual evidence, and no delay between disposal and entry. Where reporting or disclosure is required, that measured, evidenced data gives you a stronger foundation for the numbers you report.

CSRD and ESG reporting: what hospitality groups actually disclose

Some quick terminology first: CSRD = EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive; ESG = environmental, social, and governance reporting more broadly.

CSRD food waste reporting now applies to companies with more than 1,000 employees and over €450 million in net annual turnover. That keeps the largest hotel and catering groups in scope but excludes many mid-sized operators.

If you’re in scope, you report using the European Sustainability Reporting Standards (ESRS). These standards cover different sustainability topics, from climate change to waste.

You don’t report every topic in full. First, you work out which sustainability issues involve significant impacts on people or the environment, or significant risks or opportunities for the business. The process is a double materiality assessment.

If waste is material, ESRS E5: Resource Use and Circular Economy sets out what you need to disclose. It covers your main waste streams, the total weight of waste generated, and how that waste is handled, including what’s diverted from or sent to disposal. There isn’t a separate food waste KPI.

Food waste can still form part of that wider waste picture for hospitality and food service businesses. And even if your group falls outside CSRD scope, investors, financial institutions, corporate clients, or brand owners may still ask for sustainability data.

Orbisk supports that reporting with measured waste data by weight, waste stream, and location. That data can support ESRS E5 and GRI 306 waste disclosures, while its API feeds data into wider sustainability reporting tools. Orbisk also reports CO₂e of food waste metrics such as total kg CO₂e, kg CO₂e per guest, and reductions against your own baseline.

Standardising measurement across multi-site EU operations

National rules will differ. If you run a multi-site group, the simplest approach is to adopt one measurement method across your whole portfolio that can answer whatever each country asks for.

That means:

1. Using one measurement method and one set of categories everywhere. Apply the same approach at every site and in every country to capture and categorise waste consistently across the group.
2. Benchmarking properties in one central dashboard. Comparable data makes it easier to see which sites are generating more waste and where the biggest differences sit.
3. Building group reporting from the same data. When a new national requirement appears, you can turn the data you already collect into a new report rather than create a new measurement process.

The goal is consistency across all locations: the same method, the same categories, and the same evidence standard in every kitchen.

Accor shows how consistent measurement can cut waste and costs across a large portfolio. It uses Orbisk at 200+ hotels worldwide, where properties average a 33% reduction in food waste and €54,000 in savings per location.

A 90-day measurement plan for hotel and catering kitchens

Why wait for national rules to take shape in 2027 to improve your food waste data? A phased 90-day plan can move your group from estimates to a measured baseline without disrupting normal kitchen operations.

The timings below are indicative:

1. Weeks 1–6: build your baseline. Capture waste consistently across all locations for six weeks to give every site a measured starting point. This is your own operational baseline, separate from the 2021–2023 reference period used for the EU’s national targets.
2. Weeks 7–8: find the biggest opportunities. Orbisk automatically surfaces the top wasted ingredients by location; you don’t have to diagnose or rank them manually.
3. Weeks 9–12: take action and measure the change. Approve suggested corrective actions with one click and track reductions against your own baseline.
4. Week 13: report progress. Bring the data together into a first baseline and progress report for the group, using the same measurement method across every location.

Those 90 days establish the method and create a reliable starting point. The bigger wins follow. Orbisk customers can achieve up to 70% food waste reduction, with ROI typically reached within 4–8 months and returns of 2x–10x. Results depend on food volume and existing waste levels.

Orbisk: moving from estimates to measured evidence

No one knows yet exactly what every country will ask kitchens to measure, report, or prove. What you can control now is whether your food waste figure is based on consistent, measured data you can trace back to individual disposals and use to track reductions over time.

Orbisk is built for that exact job, capturing each disposal at the moment it happens, before ingredients mix, so operations and ESG teams across the group work from the same measured evidence. Staff throw food away as normal. Orbisk captures the ingredient, weight, waste stream, and container type in the background. No training, no admin, and no follow-up required.

That gives you one method across every site, whether you’re responsible for one kitchen or hundreds, and a number you can explain when your board, client, or national authority asks where it came from. Better capture feeds better decisions, too: when you see where waste is happening, you also see where to act.

Read next: ESG regulations in the food sector

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