Fight against food waste takes carrot-and-stick approach

East Beijing hotel has adopted smaller dessert portions, which also allows guests more choices at its semi-buffets, though customers can always get a second portion. "In this way, guests can try different types of cakes without wasting too much," Ji says.

Brunches don't allow takeaway, but customers at a la carte dinners are encouraged to take packaged leftovers home at more and more restaurants.

The best way to control waste, the Westin's Houbeich says, is to educate and create awareness through social media by showing the impact of food wastage and contrasting this with the people who are suffering from hunger. This can create a better understanding and can drive change.

One such campaign is the UN's "Think, Eat, Save", which aims to reduce food loss and waste along the entire chain of food production and consumption, according to the program's website.

Such subtle approaches continue to be more common that punitive actions like withholding deposits for wasting foods or even making waste a crime, which was proposed by China's best-known agriculture scientist Yuan Longping.

"Our country has such a huge population and the arable land is very small if it is divided for each Chinese individual," Yuan, known as "the Father of Hybrid Rice" by Chinese media, told China Central Television in 2013. "For years we agricultural scientists have been toiling to achieve an increase of 2.5 or 5 kilograms to the harvest of each mu (0.06 hectare) of rice, but after the food was increased, people wasted it," he says. "I am proposing that the government make (regulations and policies) to encourage people to despise the waste of food and to treat it like a crime."

An extensive circular released by the Communist Party of China in 2014 declared that food waste remains rampant due to ostentatious lifestyles and lack of supervision, and outlined measures prohibiting too much money being spent on food among officials. Government departments, organizations and State-owned enterprises must now publicize the amount they spend on dining for public supervision, Xinhua reports.

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