Food waste in Icelandic restaurants: the numbers, the sorting law and the payback

Every kitchen throws some food away. Peelings, bones and coffee grounds are part of cooking. The part worth your attention is the food you paid for and could have sold: the tray of rice that was made for a busy night that never came, the herbs that went soft in the cold room, the fries that come back on every third plate.

This guide looks at what the Icelandic figures show, what the waste law asks of a restaurant, what reduction programmes have returned in other countries, and how to measure your own waste in two weeks. The figures are as of October 2026.

How much Icelandic food service throws away

Umhverfis- og orkustofnun (UOS) measured food waste across the whole food chain for the first time in 2022, with the EU method. Restaurants and food service wasted 10,3 kg per resident that year, about 3.860 tonnes.² UOS says that figures from earlier surveys are hard to compare, because the method changed.²

Eurostat now has two more years. Its category “restaurants and food services” covers restaurants, hotels, canteens and other food service. In Iceland the amount went from 3.856 tonnes in 2022 to 4.505 tonnes in 2023 and 4.490 tonnes in 2024.¹ Per resident, that is 10 kg, 12 kg and 12 kg. The EU average was 15 kg, 14 kg and 15 kg.¹

Food waste from restaurants and food services, kg per resident, 2022–2024

• Iceland
• EU27

Show the data

Year	Iceland	EU27
2022	10 kg	15 kg
2023	12 kg	14 kg
2024	12 kg	15 kg

Iceland is still below the EU average. In the same three years, total food waste in Iceland fell from 159 to 148 to 127 kg per resident, mostly because households and primary production wasted less.¹ Food service went the other way. The data does not say why.

Iceland’s goal is to cut food waste by 30 % by 2025 and by 50 % by 2030, with 2022 as the starting line.²

The food cost guide shows how waste belongs in the plate cost of a dish. This guide is about finding that waste and making it smaller.

Where the waste comes from

We found no Icelandic study that splits restaurant waste by stage. A large study from the UK gives a useful picture. WRAP looked at hotels, restaurants, pubs, canteens and other food service in 2011. On average, 21 % of the food waste came from spoilage, 45 % from preparation and 34 % from guests’ plates.⁶ WRAP judged that 75 % of all the food wasted could have been eaten.⁶

Where food waste arises in UK hospitality and food service (2011 data)

Show the data

Stage	Share of food waste
Spoilage (storage, out of date)	21 %
Preparation (trim, overproduction)	45 %
Plates (left by guests)	34 %

In UK restaurants, WRAP estimated that food waste was over 20 % of the weight of food bought. WRAP put the full cost of food waste at £3,500 per tonne for restaurants, including the food, the labour to prepare it and the disposal.⁶ Those figures are old and from the UK, but they show the scale of the cost.

A Swiss study weighed every category of waste for five days in two staff canteens. Waste was 10,7 % and 7,7 % of all food delivered, or 91 g and 86 g per meal.⁷ Serving losses were the largest category, and starch sides and vegetables were the items wasted most often. Guests who left food on the plate most often said that the portion was too large or that they were not hungry.⁷

In a restaurant, look in three places:

• The cold room and dry store. Things that go out of date before they are used. Too large an order, or a dish that stopped selling.
• The pass and the prep station. Trim, and food that was prepared for covers that did not come. Sauces, rice, soups and garnish that are made in a batch and thrown out at close.
• The dish pit. Food that comes back on plates. If the same side returns half eaten every night, the portion may be too large.

What the law asks you to sort

The waste act, lög 55/2003, was changed by lög 103/2021, and the change took effect on 1 January 2023.³

• Bio-waste includes restaurant waste. The act defines lífúrgangur (bio-waste) to include food and kitchen waste from restaurants, canteens and catering businesses.³
• Separate collection on site. Article 10 requires separate collection of at least paper and cardboard, metal, plastic, glass, bio-waste, textiles and hazardous waste. In towns, paper and cardboard, plastic and bio-waste are collected on the property of each home and each business.³
• Businesses must sort. Article 10 says: “Rekstraraðilum er skylt að flokka rekstrarúrgang”. Operators must sort their business waste.³

How you sort in practice, which bins you have and how often they are emptied, follows your municipality’s waste rules (samþykkt um meðhöndlun úrgangs) and your contract with the collector.

Households have improved quickly. In April 2026, the association of municipalities reported that recycling of household waste rose 39,2 % from 2023 to 2024, mostly because of separate bio-waste collection.⁴ UOS also pointed out that workplaces have been slower than homes to set up the same sorting, and that workplaces must follow the same municipal rules as homes.⁴

Does it pay?

The best evidence on the money comes from Champions 12.3, a group of business and government leaders. In 2019, WRI and WRAP analysed food waste programmes at 114 restaurant sites in 12 countries, including Norway, Sweden, Denmark and the UK.⁵

• The median and average benefit-cost ratio was 7:1 over three years. Half of the sites got back 7 kr. or more for each 1 kr. that they spent on the programme.⁵
• 76 % of the sites had recovered their cost within one year, and 89 % within two years.⁵
• On average, the weight of food waste fell 26 % in the first year and 58 % over three years.⁵
• The median site saved 2 cents on every dollar spent on food.⁵

The results varied a lot, from 0:1 to 27:1.⁵ The study covers only the sites where the authors could get data, and the authors ask readers to be careful when they apply the results to other restaurants.⁵ It counts only waste from the kitchen, not from guests’ plates.⁵

The sites with the best results had some things in common. They found the few items that caused most of the waste and started there. They used scales and containers that they already had. Kitchen staff took part, and they were not afraid that waste figures would be used against them.⁵

A worked example

The Champions 12.3 report uses a simple way to show the money: the cost of food thrown away in the kitchen as a share of the food you buy.⁵ The numbers below are an example, not an average.

A drop from 5 % to 3 % is two percentage points, the same as the median site in the study.⁵ If scales, containers and a short staff meeting cost you 50.000 kr., the first two months pay for it.

How to measure your own waste

To start, a kitchen scale, a few labelled tubs and a sheet of paper on the wall are enough.

1. Choose the categories. Use four: spoilage, prep and trim, overproduction (made but not sold) and plate waste. Keep inedible parts, such as bones and peelings, separate from food that could have been eaten.
2. Weigh for two weeks. Weigh each tub at the end of each shift and write down the weight and the main items. Two weeks include both quiet and busy days.
3. Put a price on it. Multiply the weight of the main items by what they cost you per kilo. A kilo of lamb thrown away costs more than a kilo of potatoes.
4. Compare with your sales. Your sales report shows how many portions of each dish you sold. If you make 40 portions of soup and the report shows 25 sold on most days, the batch is too large.
5. Change one or two things. Smaller batches before the evening, a smaller side, an order that matches the sales of the last four weeks, or a lunch dish that uses the trim.
6. Weigh again. Weigh for one more week after a month and compare.

If you use Resto’s back office, the sales report by item and by hour helps with steps 4 and 5.