CaféLab: Rethinking Food Waste in Australian Cafés

Food waste in cafés is often treated as a problem of individual behaviour: order less, waste less, recycle more. CaféLab takes a different approach, examining how food waste is produced through the everyday practices, pressures and systems that shape café work.

The Café Sector Action Plan 2024 investigates food waste across small- and medium-sized cafés in Australia, following food through the system from suppliers and producers to kitchens, customers and waste management. The research brought together more than 50 stakeholders across Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, including café owners and workers, chefs, producers, educators, local governments, food rescue organisations and waste service providers.

Using digital ethnography, fieldwork, interviews and participatory workshops, the project explored not only where food is wasted, but how and why waste becomes embedded in everyday café practices. The research identified two recurring hotspots: menu design and planning, and perceptions of food safety and use-by and best-before dates. These were shaped by deeper structural challenges including limited training and food systems literacy, time pressures, labour constraints and inadequate waste infrastructure.

The research also examined cafés already experimenting with low-waste practices to identify solutions that are practical within the realities of hospitality work. These included in-house skills development, short and flexible menus, root-to-tip cooking, preservation and fermentation, clearer menu communication and more thoughtful portioning.

Importantly, the project shows that individual cafés cannot drive this transition alone. Reducing food waste at scale requires clearer regulation, better infrastructure, sector-wide training, stronger food systems literacy and changes in customer expectations and the value placed on hospitality labour.

By connecting everyday café practices with wider food systems, labour conditions, policy and infrastructure, CaféLab demonstrates how qualitative research can reveal the social and structural dimensions of sustainability challenges—and identify pathways towards a more circular, low-waste café sector.

Impact: The project provides an evidence base for action across industry, government and education, with potential benefits including reduced food waste, improved industry profitability, greater food rescue, greenhouse gas savings and the development of circular-economy skills and jobs.