We ran across this cool calculator today and wanted to pass it along.  Originally intended for K-12 school foodservice, it can be applied to most other foodservice groups (hospitals, university, corporate dining) with a little adjustment.

The Oklahoma Department of Agriculture created this produce calculator so that when a foodservice director  says, “I need enough apples/pears/oranges to serve 300 1/4 cup servings to the students” that measurement will be converted to to cases or pounds.  This easy conversion tool helps to prevent waste through planning - by stating only the case amount or pounds need to serve your number of students (or patients, or guests).  This can help your cooks or prep staff to get a better idea of what ‘300 portions’ looks like in the bulk state.

(BTW: 300 1/4 cup portions = 20.3 lbs)

This produce calculator can be especially helpful at the salad bar.  Look at your POS reports for the retail operations.  Do you sell 100 ’salad bars’ per day?  200?  Adjust prep sheets to reflect the differences between sales and prep.

This is a free document that you can download as an excel spreadsheet, with a very straight-forward design.  Try it out.  Click on this link, then scroll to the bottom of the page: Produce Calculator

When an operator starts monitoring food waste on the different stations, they often find that the salad bar has more waste than expected.

Two good questions to ask are: What is the least popular item on your salad bar?  What’s the most popular?

Least Popular: What doesn’t sell?  Why?  The change of seasons is often the catalyst.  Crunchy items and lightly dressed compound salads are most popular in the warmer months.   Cured meats and cheeses (like antipasti salad) are more popular in winter.  Seasonal changes in produce are also likely culprits.  Example:  tomatoes in the middle of winter are out of season and tend to be pale, unripe and lacking in taste.  Adjust for those seasonal shifts in produce when menu planning on the salad bar.

Peoples preferences also change from season to season.  They tend to crave what is available in their area at the time.  Food guides like Healthy Harvest are great resources to help plan menus with local, seasonal produce.  Check with your produce supplier or broadliner.  Most have a seasonal guide sheet or a link on their webpage that will let you know what’s available in your area.

Most popular: People enjoy these items and very often are sold out by the end of the shift.  Can you add that as a regular item on the rotation?  Or could it become one of the permanent, daily items?  Usually on this list are: roasted tomatoes, beans (black, cannellini or bean salads), poached or grilled chicken or turkey.  Other popular items are spicy croutons, bagel chips, nuts and cured olives.  Adding these items can help boost sales, too.

What about your permanent/daily items?  Have you reviewed those lately?  Are the hard boiled eggs selling as well now as they did 6 months ago?  Bacon bits? Cottage cheese?  Tastes change with new changes in the social diet.  Are people eating more protein or more carbs?  Are they interested in Asian cuisine or Latin flavors?  Ask your staff.  They are on the line every day and can give good feedback.  They hear the guests talking about the salad bar selection.  Not every guest will fill out a comment card, but a sharp staff member will overhear “cauliflower, again?” or “they never have soybeans/tortilla chips/balsamic vinaigrette”.

A little investigating can go a long way.  Tracking items that are either thrown away or saved for later can tell you about peoples eating habits.  Make some adjustments and your customers will be happy - you might even boost sales!

LeanPath coaches speak with clients on a regular basis.  Often we learn new information that can help others reduce waste and we like to share those Hints and Tips with you.  Eggs are an item we often see high on our clients initial reports. Eggs are an item often mass produced in the morning and if focused on by the team they can quickly cut down on breakfast pre-consumer waste.

Eggs Tips:

1. How much do you really need?–Often eggs are one of the breakfast items that sites make multiple pans of to get out of the way so they can focus on lunch.  Track the amount of eggs left over and cut back pars to match your data.  Make enough to get you through the morning rush but then batch cook the eggs to order (or in smaller batches) in the final portion of the breakfast period.  Cuts back on waste and gives those last customers a fresher product.
2. Hold the garnishment–Hold back on layering on the cheese and veggies until the product is ready to be put on the line.  By doing this you not only get a better looking product but save on wasting items such as cheese that may ultimately will be thrown out.  Sprinkle it on, a quick hit in the oven and the product is ready to go.
3. Focus on re-use opportunities–Just because breakfast is over doesn’t mean that the eggs are done.  If you have leftover eggs never put out (and held safely) sites have incorporate these into pre-made breakfast burritos they sell in the period between breakfast and lunch or added them into dishes such as fried rice for the lunch period.

TIPS to ZAP Waste:  A regular Food Waste Focus feature on waste reduction best practices. Return to the Food Waste Focus blog for more TIPS by searching the “Tips” tag.  Also subscribe to the Food Waste Flyer Newsletter. Both contain fresh, real-world insights on food waste management from LeanPath, the experts in food waste tracking systems.

Is there really an i-phone App for Food Waste? Yes- it’s true!

The folks at Waste Aware Scotland have created an i-phone app that helps the home consumer learn how to reduce food waste.

“The app provides consumers with easy to use interactive tools such as a portion size planner; recipe finder for leftover ingredients; weekly meal planner and various hints and tips on how to reduce food waste. The app asks users to put their ingredients into an on-screen blender, (these could be leftovers or ingredients they already have but are not sure how to make into a meal) then simply shake it to create an easy, healthy recipe.”

We tried the blender on our i-phone in the office - very fun!

The idea is to carry this information with you when you go to the grocery store. Using that shopping list with a meal planner helps you to only buy what you need and in the portions required for each meal.  Thus avoiding waste.  No more extra vegetables, or moldy bread that was never used.  One function of the app allows you to select the number of adults and children for each meal. The planner adjusts food quantities - 500 grams of chicken, 6 broccoli florets, etc.   Very helpful when you are in a hurry.

Here is the link for the iPhone App: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/love-food-hate-waste/id348154861?mt=8

The website; www.wasteawarelovefood.org.uk, like the app, now has a handy portion planning tool and recipe finder for leftover ingredients.  So you can plan your meals and portions from home and take a printed list with you.

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On a similar, but separate note:  if you are involved with foodservice on a larger scale - hospital, university, or corporate dining the app mentioned above will be too small for your needs.  Commercial food productions systems like C-board, Computrition and VST will do the same things, but give you a greatly enhanced experience with menu planning, portion control/cost and even inventory sheets.  Proper purchasing and portion control will help to reduce food waste.

To further identify waste reduction opportunities, you can use a waste tracking system. Either automated (like LeanPath) or manual (paper tracking) will give you the ability to ’see’ all food items that are being thrown out.  Review your tracking reports periodically to identify goals and monitor progress.

While the following trends are not fully here today, they’re on the horizon:

Customers Demand More Information. Customers have been clamoring to understand their food better in recent years: Where did it come from? Who grew it? Is it safe? These customers expect transparency around food. This attitude will expand beyond food sourcing into the waste arena. Some customers now ask whether a restaurant composts its food waste and reuses its oil for bio-diesel. They want to know that the waste, which they have helped to create, will be handled responsibly. Expect more questions and expectations of transparency and responsibility around waste handling in the future.

Regulations Exclude Food Waste from Landfills. More municipalities will strive to eliminate organics from landfills due to their greenhouse gas emissions. These regulators will create new requirements that may effectively prevent food waste from going to many landfills. This will force operators and their haulers to develop more diversion alternatives.

Regulations Prevent use of Non-Compostable and Non-Recyclable Disposables. Following the lead of Seattle, regulators may prevent use of non-compostable and non-recyclable disposable packaging.

Waste to Energy Plants. Food waste can be converted to high-value energy by digesting waste and creating methane. Expect to see new digestion plants to digest food waste directly (not from the waste water system) at a commercial scale to produce energy.

Closing Thoughts

The learning required to succeed on the new frontier of waste management may frustrate operators and test their patience at times. Yet the payoff will be large enough to more than justify the investment. There is arguably no more compelling or significant opportunity in foodservice today than working to mange waste more efficiently. This represents a chance to improve the bottom line while making a meaningful difference environmentally. It’s a high-leverage opportunity and deserves the focus and commitment of our industry.

You can access the full article in the December issue of Foodservice Equipment and Supplies Magazine

Article: “Redefining Foodservice Waste Management:  What’s Next.”

Just to recap - Reducing food waste at the source is the first and best thing you can do.  It’s easiest, free and doesn’t take a lot of time.

But what do you do with food that can’t be reduced any farther?  Well, in order from best to least desirable, first feed people (donate to a local food bank), then feed animals (pig farms, etc.).  The next step is Industrial uses.  We have all heard that used oils (fryer, vegetable, etc.) can be made into bio-diesel.  That’s an excellent reuse of a product that would otherwise go to a landfill.  But what if you don’t have the ability to convert used oil into bio-diesel?  If you are like a few students at the University of Florida - you turn it into soap.

They have a bio-diesel plant but it’s not running right now.  What do they do with all of this oil?  Send it to the landfill?  No, they thought of an alternate use - and might even turn a profit.

This soap is made from glycerin which is part of the bio-diesel process.  They color it with the team colors and scent it with essential oils (like orange).  It is then sold with their logo or in the shape of a gator.  A great, alternate idea to a very regular problem.

Check out the entire article at: http://www.gainesville.com/article/20091219/ARTICLES/912199979/1002?p=1&tc=pg

This is a great example of how a little thinking and entrepreneurship can help solve an unexpected problem.  If you plan a green initiative and something falls through - don’t give up!  Perhaps a little problem solving will give you an even better solution.

A few months ago Joe Carbonara, the editor of Foodservice Equipment and Supplies Magazine, asked our president Andrew Shakman to look forward to 2010 and think about new trends and ways waste management might evolve.   We have posted excerpts from the article on this blog over the past five Wednesdays.

Here is excerpt 5 of 5 from the article:

Trend 9:  Taking a Fresh Look at Garbage Disposers

Grinding food waste in a garbage disposer and sending it to a municipal waste water treatment plant is another landfill diversion strategy.   

Since food is already 70% water, this is often feasible and offers the benefit of avoiding hauling costs and emissions.   Many waste water treatment plants digest the food waste, along with other organic matter, and turn it into methane gas (in a sealed system) that is used to generate energy.     This energy helps lower costs at the treatment plant and the remaining bio-solids after the digestion process may be used as fertilizer.    In this example, a garbage disposer would place higher on the waste hierarchy than composting because it is an industrial use that leads to energy generation.

However, this solution may not be available or appropriate for all operators.  Garbage disposers are not allowed in some jurisdictions.  Not all waste water treatment plants have the ability to turn food waste into energy and some, which are overloaded organically, don’t want food waste.   Critics argue that some disposers use too much water and that post-digestion bio-solids may include contaminants.  Still others worry about fats, oils and greases (FOG) in the sewer system but research shows food waste rarely causes FOG build-ups.

The bottom line is that the garbage disposers may be greener than people expect, but it depends on municipal regulations and infrastructure.  Call your local utility for information.

Trend 10: Deploying On-Site Processing Systems

An on-site food waste processing system may be a good alternative if an operator lacks a commercial composting solution and does not want to dispose food waste through a garbage disposer.   There are several options:

• In-vessel composting.  Effective if an operator possesses the labor, space and technical know-how to make it work. 

• On-site aerobic digesters.  These systems use microbes that produce enzymes which digest food waste into a nutrient-rich water effluent within hours.  It’s important to understand the digestion process and discuss it with the municipal sewage authority to ensure the digester effluent will be accepted.

• Waste Dehydrators.  This solution extracts and evaporates water, reducing weight and volume of food waste and leaving a soil amendment as a by-product which is not compost.

You can access the full article in the December issue of Foodservice Equipment and Supplies Magazine

“Redefining Foodservice Waste Management:  What’s Next.”

LeanPath coaches speak with clients on a regular basis.  Often we learn new information that can help others reduce waste and we like to share those Hints and Tips with you.  Premium Coffee is an item that is often targeted due to it’s expense, both in product cost and upstream costs as well.

Coffee Tips:

1. Monitor How and When coffee is produced–Have Cafe staff track coffee that is discarded throughout the service period.  Use that data as a training tool to educate staff and implement new policies on coffee production.  Many sites have moved to 1/2 batch production or smaller air pots following the AM rush to lessen coffee waste.  Once you’ve made changes, keep tracking to keep staff focused on the new procedure and keep getting good data to look for future reduction ideas.
2. Iced Coffee in the PM–Some sites are now saving coffee and then re-utilizing that coffee in the PM for iced coffee, don’t forget the Decaf too!
3. Make use of the leftover coffee in recipes: flavoring for frostings, baking, desserts, marinades for meats and substitution for water in certain recipes are all good alternative uses for leftover coffee.
4. Don’t forget the grounds:  Coffee grounds have many uses, most of our clients use them on-site/off-site for composting but a quick search of the web lists a myriad of unique uses from deodorizer to insect repellant.  You can give used grounds away or even possibly sell them for use.

TIPS to ZAP Waste:  A regular Food Waste Focus feature on waste reduction best practices. Return to the Food Waste Focus blog for more TIPS by searching the “Tips” tag.  Also subscribe to the Food Waste Flyer Newsletter. Both contain fresh, real-world insights on food waste management from LeanPath, the experts in food waste tracking systems.

New York City - the Big Apple…wasting apples?  Is this true?  No.  But it’s an excellent video demonstrating the huge amount of food waste generated.  Check it out:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2V5fKX_U3qY&feature=player_embedded

Sometimes it takes an example like this to help everyone get a grasp on the true volume of food waste.  A single item, filling up a familiar space…

A few months ago Joe Carbonara, the editor of Foodservice Equipment and Supplies Magazine, asked our president Andrew Shakman to look forward to 2010 and think about new trends and ways waste management might evolve.   We are posting excerpts from the article on this blog for the next five Wednesdays.

Here is excerpt 4 of 5 from the article:

Trend 7: Encouraging use of Reusable Serviceware over Disposables

Compostable disposables occupy a prominent position in the current discussion about waste management.   However, source reduction of disposable waste is still a much better solution than compostables if you have on-site diners and warewashing capabilities.  By making every effort to encourage customers to take reusables, operators reduce waste and environmental impact.

It’s very frustrating to witness guests eating in the dining room from disposable to-go vessels when china permanent ware is available nearby.  It’s even more frustrating to see foodservice staff doing the same thing!   As a first step, operators should require all foodservice workers eating on-site to use reusable ware.   Then make disposables scarcer for regular guests and consider imposing a surcharge.  

Trend 8:  Supporting Regional Commercial Composters

Even with extensive efforts to source reduce, there will be waste and it should be diverted away from landfills.   Composting is one of the most common and effective diversion strategies, however, many regions lack access to commercial composting facilities for food waste.   While some operators may compost on-site, this is not a practical solution for most facilities.  Commercial composting facilities offer great value because they master the technical nuances of composting and market the end-product effectively.  More operators will find themselves looking for commercial composting alternatives in 2010 and it’s important they communicate this need to their municipality and garbage hauler.  As operator demand increases, there will be incentives for private enterprise to develop more commercial composting alternatives.

You can access the full article in the December issue of Foodservice Equipment and Supplies Magazine

“Redefining Foodservice Waste Management:  What’s Next.”