Food Waste Focus

How important is Food Donation?  Looking at the EPA Food Waste Hierarchy we see that the best way to eliminate food waste is to reduce it at the source.  Source reduction is the easiest, best and least expensive way to reduce your waste footprint.  The next best thing is food donation – feeding hungry people.  [...]

International Compost Awareness Week (ICAW) takes place this year from May 2-8, 2010, with the theme “Compost!…Recycling For a Greener Tomorrow”. Originally established in 1995, Compost Awareness Week serves the important role of bringing the Compost! message to the attention of the public, business and other groups. Communities, government agencies as well as members of the composting [...]

We just received these great Hints and Tips from some of our newest accounts.  We would like to share them with you: “Schmoosh Pie” -  take day old pies that look tired and use a potato masher to break them up (“smoosh”).  Place contents in a cup and top with whipped cream.  Sell in the [...]

Helene York from Bon Appetit penned an excellent essay for the Atlantic Monthly’s online publication titled “Waste Not, Warm Not: Cutting Dining Hall Scraps.” It’s an excellent summary of the challenges facing volume foodservice operators.   We developed these additional thoughts in response to Helene’s article: As Helene’s comments suggest, food waste from volume kitchens is [...]

Exciting News!  Martinsburg VA Medical Center (West Virginia) (a LeanPath customer), has achieved the honor and distinction of becoming a VA Sustainability Achievement Award winner.  They won the award for their Waste Watcher Program – which includes daily, electronic food waste tracking. VA Senior Sustainability Officer James M. Sullivan praised staff as “an excellent example [...]

Day of the Week Waste Reports – Match Waste and Menus Many operators have menus that stay mostly the same day-to-day while others run cycle menus and specials that create regular change.  Regardless of which type of menu you have, it’s very useful to review waste by day of the week.  This step can reveal [...]

Timing is Everything: Watch the Calendar We’ve found that chefs who are successful at maximizing sales and reducing waste are, in most cases, very good at predicting customer demand. The more accurately we can forecast demand, the less likely we are to have leftover items that become waste. The only thing you can count about [...]

What is “Utilization”? When chefs talk about “utilization”, they’re usually referring to finding a “profitable or practical use” for the food they purchase. The most obvious use is within the menu item for which the food was purchased. But often there is more food purchased than ultimately is required for its intended purpose (due to [...]

In February 2010, we wrote a post about Food Holidays as possible reuse opportunities.  We had great response and wanted to continue posting about these for this month and next. We mention these holidays, because they are fun (of course!), but also because incorporating these dates into your menu can help to reduce food waste [...]

Have you heard the term Zero Waste? If you answered “yes”, you’re not alone. Many foodservice managers and chefs have been learning about Zero Waste initiatives recently and looking specifically at the feasibility of zero food waste. Operators tend to have one of two reactions: * That’s an impossible goal, we can’t run out of [...]