One pub’s strategy to reduce costs and wastage – in a period of major price increases on fresh food – has met with plenty of criticism by armchair critics writing it off as profiteering.
Irish Murphy’s in Ballarat recently opted to stop automatically including salad or vegetables with main meals, notifying patrons it would instead offer them as an additional side item if desired.
Foodservice operators have been faced with major increases on fresh produce, and the pub cited the move was a bid to keep prices lower, while reducing food waste.
One disgruntled diner posed the question about the offending table flyer notice, and amongst the hundreds of comments there were plenty of critics.
It was said that such a move should be accompanied by “a noticeably lower price” on the dish. Many suggestions centred on the policy appearing more like “a method to increase profit” rather than to reduce waste, and that the operator could simply offer the salad as an optional extra.
But there were also plenty not against the rational move, including pub and restaurant workers, relaying how “about half” of plates return with the salad untouched, which cannot be reused and “will go in the bin”.
Both consumers and businesses have been experiencing record prices for staple fresh fruit and vegetables, notably lettuce, mushrooms, Lebanese cucumbers, cabbage, spinach – up around 100 per cent – and broccoli – up around 130 per cent.
Sean, the appropriately named venue manager at Irish Murphys responded to the criticism on 3AW, stressing that the change was to reduce wastage and “make [meals] realistically priced for our punters”.
He also reported the policy has generally received a “great” response from the community.
