The familiar self-service buffet station is known in the trade as ‘French Service’: a table groaning with plates of food, offering multiple choices, all served at once. In terms of psychology, the French Service plays to our basic instincts: if you see there is plenty, you don’t worry that there won’t be enough to go around and, hopefully, you don’t overeat. You simply take what you need.

At Mayfair Catering we have established and published targets for food waste reduction. One way we sought to achieve this is by increasing choice on buffet tables, encouraging attendees to return multiple times to the buffet stations.

There are other ways of doing things. In the early 19^th century, the French Service was largely replaced by the Russian Service – or service a la russe – offering endless sequential courses of individually plated dishes. The Russian way, required more servants, more tableware and, generally, wealthier hosts. The food came out hotter but the Russian approach tends to leaves attendees anxious: will there be another small plate coming or is that the end of the meal? 

The English Service, by the way, is best described as cafeteria style, or the classic carvery, but we think the French have it nailed when it comes it reducing food waste.

In practical terms how can we use this? We are going to trial different sized plates at different venues using identical menus over an extended period. Through monitoring food waste percentages over a period of time (a month) and delegate feedback forms hopefully we can overcome the inevitable variations in delegate composition from one conference to another.

As ever, we need feedback from delegates to ensure that we know if they are getting enough to eat. We encourage feedback by offering a donation of £5 to charity to each and every review posted on google.

If you are interested in obtaining a quote from Mayfair Catering for any of your forthcoming catering needs, please get in touch on 0207 323 0112 or enquiries@mayfaircatering.com