How much do chefs make?

How much of an effort do restaurants/chefs make to use all of their raw ingredients?

• For example, are the stalks of vegetables or meat trimmings not served directly to customers used to make other ingredients like stock or sauces? I'd assume some places do and some don't, but on average how much of a priority is optimizing the menu to make use of all the raw ingredients?

• Answer:

  Every effort. And, contrary to the memes out there, this isn't a foodie thing, it's as old as the profession. We work at a very low profit margin (give or take around 5-8%) and anything and everything that goes to waste will bite into that. There are, of course, exceptions. Sometimes food is trimmed or managed to become palatable. Sometimes it is reduced to remove superficial spoilage or blemishes (think a worm in an apple) in which case re-use would be unthinkable. But all in all we're not in the business of throwing away usable ingredients. Do we optimize the menu? Yes we do and no, we don't. Our menu comes first, the use of ingredients is a basic fact of work life behind the expo window, just as speed, replicability, and thematic fit are. So we don't optimize per se but we are, after all, chefs and questions of the use of tools, space, labor, and ingredients are always a subconscious factor.