Reducing Food Waste in the Sushi Industry through Technological Discipline and a Proprietary Cooking Method

Citation: Karyna Moskalchuk, "Reducing Food Waste in the Sushi Industry through Technological Discipline and a Proprietary Cooking Method", Universal Library of Multidisciplinary, Volume 03, Issue 01.

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

This study develops and provides a theoretical rationale for an integrated model aimed at reducing food losses and waste in the foodservice sector specializing in Japanese cuisine—most notably within the sushi segment—while accounting for the full set of contemporary constraints. Relevance is driven, on the one hand, by the global scale of food losses, commonly estimated at roughly 1.3 billion tons per year, and, on the other, by the distinctive operating conditions of the restaurant industry in Ukraine under wartime realities, where supply chains become more fragile, price volatility intensifies, and production planning grows markedly more complex. The analysis examines the effectiveness of implementing a disciplined technological regime built on HACCP principles and supported by digital monitoring of key process parameters, combined with an original culinary methodology conceptually aligned with the Japanese philosophy of “Mottainai” and the “nose-to-tail” approach. The analytical emphasis is placed on yield management for high-cost raw materials—particularly salmon and tuna—where even marginal improvements in yield coefficients can translate into visible economic gains and a lower share of non-productive write-offs. Using a dataset describing cultural codes in branding, a positioning strategy is formulated for environmentally responsible restaurants in the Ukrainian market context, enabling operational resource-saving practices to be linked to the brand’s value proposition. It is shown that the use of digital tools, including artificial intelligence–based solutions and IoT, at a technology readiness level (TRL) of 7–9 can deliver a twofold reduction in waste volumes alongside a 3–8% increase in profitability amid rising raw-material costs, indicating the practical applicability of the proposed approach under heightened uncertainty.

Keywords: Food Waste, Sushi Industry, Technological Discipline, Mottainai, Sustainable Development, Cultural Codes, Ukraine, Yield Management, Zero-Waste Production.

https://doi.org/10.70315/uloap.ulmdi.2026.0301005