Across Accor, culinary teams are rethinking sustainable food through creativity, technology, and collaboration – reducing waste, advancing plant-forward dining, empowering chefs and helping share practical solutions across the hospitality industry.
Among Our Commitments by 2030:
Reduce food waste by 60% (vs 2023)
Support organic agriculture and recognized agroecological practices
Favor local food suppliers and seasonal products
Our Approach to Sustainable Food
At Accor, food is more than an essential part of the guest experience – it is also a key part of how we bring our sustainability commitments to life. As travelers’ expectations evolve, we are shaping our dining offer around what matters most to guests today: flavor, well-being, and more responsible choices.
Across our global network, hotels are putting this commitment into practice in inspiring ways. To reach our Group-wide goals of reducing food waste by 60% by 2030 (vs 2023), hotels are integrating technology into their creative processes, while also celebrating the beauty, flavors, and possibilities of plant-forward cuisine, bringing us closer to our ambition for these dishes to represent 35% of starters and main dishes across our menus.
Chefs and Food & Beverage teams are central to this transformation, sharing sustainability goals and inspiring their colleagues to take action. Alongside these efforts, partnerships across the hospitality ecosystem are helping to build collective momentum toward more sustainable food systems.
At Accor, we believe food must create value on every level – for our guests, for our hotels, and for the communities and ecosystems around us. Our responsibility is not only to reduce the impact of what we serve, but to help make more sustainable dining a core part of the hospitality experience.
Making Every Ingredient Count
Food waste is one of the clearest areas where reducing our environmental footprint goes hand in hand with stronger hotel performance, making it one of our main sustainable food priorities. Since 2015, we have worked to reduce waste through creative menus coordination, technology, and changes to everyday kitchen habits.
Two partnerships launched in 2024 are helping culinary teams understand which kitchen practices contribute most to food waste. Orbisk’s AI food waste monitor, identifies and measures discarded ingredients in 200+ hotels. By recording when waste occurs, Orbisk helps chefs use food efficiently and effectively while reducing waste ౼ not the guest experience.
Meanwhile, Winnow’s AI-powered technology helps kitchens at 230+ Accor properties identify surplus food and explore creative ways to use it. Cape Grace, A Fairmont Managed Hotel, in South Africa, reduced food waste by 45% after one year, uncovering new culinary possibilities while elevating both flavor and sustainability.
This creativity took center stage during Accor and Winnow’s Green Plate Challenge, which invited chefs to give ingredients that would usually be tossed out, a new purpose. More than 40 dishes were submitted, including the winning recipe by Chef Djibril Sall, Mövenpick Resort Lamantin Saly, Senegal: Red Bean Pancakes. Other recipes transformed butternut skins into a crispy garnish, and watermelon rinds into a fresh chutney.
Transforming every ingredient, reducing every loss, and giving meaning to every plate ౼ that is my vision of sustainable gastronomy. Behind every creation is a story: that of a committed, responsible cuisine inspired by our local terroir.
Plant-Forward, at the Center of the Change
As we work on reducing food waste, another important part of this journey is addressing the impact generated by food across our network – accounting for 17% of our carbon footprint, 50% of our water impact, and 80% of our land footprint. With beef dishes generating 30 times the carbon footprint than that of vegetable-based dishes, rethinking what we serve can make a meaningful difference.
Novotel has helped lead this evolution, laying the groundwork for Accor’s broader plant-forward approach. Building on that foundation, hotels across our network are developing dishes that put flavor, pleasure and balance at the center of the guest experience, while also supporting more sustainable dining.
New recipes put fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds at the heart of the meal, with meat and fish making up no more than 10% of its total volume. This flexitarian approach brings together flavor, color and creativity on the plate, offering guests delicious dining experiences they seek out and come back for, while lowering carbon, water and land impact.
At Novotel Cairns Oasis Resort in Australia, this comes to life through locally inspired dishes such as tropical guacamole with pawpaw and mango, banana blossom soft tacos and a vibrant Buddha bowl, while at Novotel London West in the UK, the approach combines local British produce, cultural storytelling and modern plant-based dining, with dishes such as Vegetable Thai Green Curry and Vegan Mumbai Vada Pav helping spark guest curiosity and demand.
Guests choosing plant-forward dishes still want the same sense of pleasure and satisfaction as any other diner. The key is to offer options that feel generous, flavorful and truly enjoyable.
Empowering Chefs to Lead the Transition
Accor’s sustainable food commitments and ambitions are tied directly to our team members, our Heartists®, whose expertise and dedication drive progress across the Group. Chefs and culinary teams have access to a suite of tools and training that support this transition, encourage everyone to take part, and help make successful initiatives part of everyday operations.
This support takes on many forms. To date, nearly 400 Novotel kitchen teams have access to participate in the Culinary Institute of America Program’s Plant Forward training, developing sustainable cooking skills and exploring how to make plant-powered dishes.
Building a more sustainable food future requires not only new skills and culinary approaches, but also empowering the people who will lead this transformation. Alongside this training, we are committed to creating more inclusive pathways for Talent to grow, develop and advance into leadership roles across the Food & Beverage industry.
Women in Food was first launched in the Pacific in 2025 and later across Asia in 2026. This initiative connects and empowers Accor’s female culinary professionals to advance into leadership roles, and has grown from six to 45 members.
Women in Food is about creating visibility, opportunity, and a stronger voice for women in our industry. It’s about building a community where women can connect, learn from each other and see leadership as something achievable for them too.
In many parts of Asia, these responsibilities can still fall more heavily on women, making the path to leadership feel more complex at times. That’s why Women in Food means so much to me. It creates a space where women can support one another, share experiences, and learn from those who have walked a similar path.
Working Together to Push the Industry Forward
While we continue to put concrete actions into practice across the Group, lasting progress on food waste and more sustainable food systems depend on collaboration throughout the hospitality ecosystem. Our commitment extends beyond our own operations.
As a member of the International Food Waste Coalition, which is a program managed by WRAP Europe (Waste and Resources Action Program), we work with industry partners to define best practices and methodologies for reducing food waste at an industry level.
This commitment extends to supporting practical tools for this sector. At Accor, we are a main sponsor of WRAP’s Food Waste Decelerator, launched at London Climate Week 2026. This free online platform gives hospitality operators access to case studies and technology solutions to reduce waste, improve efficiency, and strengthen resilience. Available in over 50 languages, it aims to make practical, tested guidance more accessible across the sector.
With more than 5,800 hotels and 10,000 restaurants and bars, Accor has both the scale and the responsibility to help advance sustainable food systems. By combining the expertise and commitment of our teams with industry-wide partnerships, we can help turn successful initiatives into shared practices and shape a more resilient future for hospitality. Through food, hospitality has the power to bring together pleasure, well-being and positive impact.
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