Amount of food waste from restaurants under the coronavirus
pandemic
Since the last week of February when the Japanese government requested
suspension of large-scale events, the number of people eating out in
restaurants have started to decrease. This decrease was accelerated in
late March when the Tokyo metropolitan governor requested residents to
stay home during the weekends. On 7 April, the Japanese Prime Minister
declared a state of emergency requesting residents in Tokyo and six
other prefectures to stay home except for when needed and restaurants to
shorten their opening hours. These measures decreased the restaurant’s
activity dramatically. According to the study by the Japan Food Service
Association targeting its member restaurants, the sales of dining
restaurants was 102.3%, 97.4%, 59.5% and 16.0% during the first four
months of 2020 respectively compared to the same months of the previous
year (Japan Food Service Association, 2020). We assumed that the food
waste from restaurants decreased by these proportions during this
period.