Start a campaign to reduce the waste of good food: create awareness of all the delicious food that is thrown away at restaurants every day and promote the use of 'doggy bags' (taboo in NL, very normal everywhere else ;)!) An idea from Verena

In the Netherlands there is now a new initiative called Foodiebag (they changed the name from doggy bag to foodiebag because it indeed has a negative connotation in NL).

They are trying to convince restaurants to start offering the foodiebag to costumers after a meal and break the taboo. The bag itself is made out of recycled and leftover materials and looks actually really nice.

They are still looking for people to promote this project because they want more restaurants to start using them.

http://verdraaidgoed.nl/projecten/foodiebag/

Ah, and there is also Thuis Afgehaald (picked up at home). Here you can find people in your neighbourhood who have leftovers or cooked a little bit extra. You can then pass by and pick up the food for a small amount of money. It's a very nice initiative which increases social contact between people and takes care of food leftovers. It's becoming very popular, maybe a great idea also for other countries.

http://www.thuisafgehaald.nl/

I saw this when I was working in a restaurant in the US as well. Every night, we have to throw away trays of perfectly good food because the restaurant cooked too much and could not keep them to sell the next day in case they get sued. Employees were not allowed to bring the leftover food back as well because of a previous lawsuit; the employee brought the food back, got food poisoning, and sued the restaurant for it. And every restaurant in the US does this, which seems really wasteful to me. In Singapore, there is a bakery that gives leftover bread (still good but a little stale) to shelters for the poor. Maybe you could convince restaurants in the Netherlands to do this?

i remember having to throw away pies and cakes each day when i worked at Hema (long long time ago). Such a waste. but they didnt want employes deliberately keeping food behind so they could take it home with them.

Yes, I heard the same about the Albert Heijn recently. I think one of the reasons is that they are afraid people will get sick and that they can be held responsible. Still somehow there must be a way that it's possible and I'm curious how they do this at the foodbank.

A friend of mine owns a restaurant and recently he wanted to give leftovers away to the foodbank (they refused because it wasn't a thursday) , Army of Mercy (they had just received a lot of food from elsewhere) and a third charity (they were not allowed to accept it because of rules and regulations). He was very sad that he would be stuck with a lot of delicious, tasty, organic burger's, with only one option left: throwing them away. He offered to bring them himself, but couldn't get anyone to take them. He is considering starting a campaign to promote the foodie bag at least and refuse clients the right to dictate the amount of food he buys for a party they throw at his place. He will buy and take responsibility that there will be enough for everyone (or else, hahaha ;)!)

Well.. I think this is not a very good idea. I love restaurants where they promote that you eat all that you order or you must pay extra.. It's a bit cheap the American way of not being civilized: to order a doggybag because you order too much standard or the meals are too big standard. I love the European way: small meals, you eat everything you order.. neatly!

@ Amanda: yes I agree that this is a very good custom, I encountered it at a sushi restaurant a while ago. But it's not very common yet?
Well... of course I could be picking the wrong restaurants!

But still.. I am not a big eater and my partner is. How does a restaurant cope with that? Very often he eats what I cannot finish, but I don't always feel like ordering what he likes to eat ;)! Instead of eating more than I like, I prefer to take it home with me to enjoy it some more the following day.

I am not saying that promoting the foody bag (neat new word!) is the only way to address this problem, that's why this idea is made up of two aspects: create awareness of all the delicious food that is thrown away at restaurants every day (part one) and promote the use of foodie bag (part two). If the awareness leads to other (and perhaps much better) solutions then the foodie bag: great!

And last but not least: I think the idea posted by Dave is much better than mine actually, hahaha. I posted the idea here too maybe achieve part one of my idea! Now look what happened! So if you don't like my idea, please vote for another :) There's plenty good ones in my opinion.

Verena's friend with the restaurant should figure out a way to start some kind of compost pit where all wasted food can end up and could later be used for farming or planting pots.