Imperial Hotel, Tokyo and Imperial Hotel, Osaka: Introducing "mottECO" – Leftover Food Take-home Service to Reduce Waste Sustainability
To date, our company has advanced various initiatives to deal with food loss, such as strictly managing ingredient procurement, not wasting ingredients during meal preparation, and devising appropriate serving methods for buffet-style dining. In order to further reduce food loss, Imperial Hotel, Tokyo (Restaurant Parkside Diner and banquet rooms) and Imperial Hotel, Osaka (Restaurant Café Couvert and banquet rooms) have recently introduced mottECO, a food loss-reduction action plan recommended by the Ministry of the Environment, the Consumer Affairs Agency and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, in which customers take home leftover food at their own risk.
Rules and regulations for taking home leftover food
1. Purpose and Basic Concept
(1) Reducing food loss has been established as an international goal in SDGs. Disposal of large volumes of uneaten food at restaurants is a serious issue in Japan as well. Our first choice would be for customers to completely finish their meals at the restaurant. But if leftovers are unavoidable, having customers take them home at their own request is considered one way to effectively reduce food loss.
(2) There is a certain degree of food poisoning risk when taking home leftover food. The customer is asked to adequately understand the sanitary precautions that the restaurant explains, and to take all responsibility for taking home leftover food.
2. Rules
(1) Some food cannot be taken home, such as raw food, partially-raw food or other insufficiently cooked food.
(2) Leftover food cannot be taken home during summer (June 1 to September 30). The exact dates may vary depending on weather and temperature conditions.
(3) Please use the hotel's or restaurant’s designated containers when taking leftover food home.
(4) Please transfer leftover food into the designated containers yourself.
(5) Please take responsibility for transporting and storing leftover food.
(6) If you take leftover food home to family members or other people, you must take responsibility for conveying the restaurant’s precautions to the people who will eat the food.
(7) Please take responsibility for checking whether the family member, etc., has allergies. Do not give leftover food to someone with allergies.
3. Precautions
(1) When a customer takes home uneaten food provided by our restaurants, we do not take any responsibility for food poisoning, contamination or other incidents due to a customer’s actions when or after taking the food home. Thank you for your understanding.
(2) At banquet or other event venues, taking uneaten food home may be prohibited at the judgment of the venue supervisor out of consideration for how long the event lasts, the host’s wishes, and various other conditions.
Enacted November 4, 2025