Several restaurants in Germany have come up with a novel way to reduce food waste — they're starting to fine customers who fail to finish their meals. The idea is not to make an extra buck off of stuffed patrons but to encourage them to order only what they’re able to eat. At Yuoki in Stuttgart, customers who don’t finish all of the food they take from the all-you-can-eat sushi buffet are charged $1.15 as part of the restaurant’s new “eat up or pay up” policy. Customers tend to overload their plates during the 2-hour buffet, and the new fee will help remind them not to waste food. Similarly, the Düsseldorf restaurant Okinii charges $1.18 for leftover food. The Chinese-Mongolian restaurant Himalaya also charges wasteful customers, though their policy is a bit more lax. Customers are hit with a $2.25 fee only if more than 3½ ounces of food is left on their plates. While all three restaurants seem to have implemented their wastefulness fees without major pushback, it remains to be seen whether other restaurants around the world will pick up on the trend.
