Food Waste Focus

This article was published in “Inside Waste Weekly“, an e-newsletter that is focused on the waste industry in Australia.  All of the ideas and practices mentioned in this article can be done here in the U.S.A.  The newsletter is a great read for anyone in the waste industry, but also has great articles for foodservice [...]

The U.S. generates 32 million tons of food waste per year.
Traditional waste disposal providers get paid $2.4 billion to bury 97% of this waste in landfills – where it releases Methane.
Methane is a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than Carbon-CO2. (by the way – unless your compost facility has a methane ‘capture’ program – [...]

I just read this article: “Getting Green Done” http://www.greenbiz.com/podcast/2009/04/10/getting-green-done It’s is actually a transcript from a pod cast interview with Auden Schendler, the executive director of sustainability at the Aspen Skiing Company and author of the new book Getting Green Done
This is exactly the type of stuff that I run into on a daily basis. [...]

We received several great questions and comments from our recent blog on “Sneaky Waste”!  Thank you to everyone that submitted their ideas and comments.  Over the next few weeks we will continue to share these with you.
One question in particular got us thinking is what to do about condiment waste.  We think of condiments as [...]

A friend sent us a clip from this video: “It’s in Your Hands“. (The full video is available for purchase from their website.)  It is a video guide to composting restaurant food waste.  This video is designed to help all restaurants maximize their composting capabilities, which can provide a new revenue stream and/or reduce [...]

“Is this still good?”  Have you ever asked yourself that question?  It looks OK, smells OK, but it’s been sitting in your fridge for awhile.  How long can you keep bottle of salad dressing in the fridge after it’s been opened?  Is the expiration date for pre-opened bottles or post-open bottles?  What about that leftover [...]

We ran across this great article recently. It was published in GreenBiz.com.
This article gives a really sharp focus to waste in the work place. Although many of you will probably not collect all the waste from your location like Burt’s Bees – or sift through it in hazmat suits! – a little spot checking can [...]

Occasionally we get questions from our customers about wasting less food.  Healthcare foodservice operations face many challenges when it comes to patient feeding.  Wasted food happens on both sides of the line – pre-consumer: guests might not order a dish in advance or post-consumer: they might not cosume that dish on the tray.  One of [...]

There’s no doubt that restaurants, foodservice and hospitality continue to face an extremely difficult business climate.     Initially, many operators I know “froze” – feeling there was no way to act in a period of such uncertainty.  But slowly that view has thawed and I’m hearing more forward-thinking operators saying:
“We’ve got to continue pushing forward.  We [...]

Dan Bendall, Principal at Rockville, MD based FoodStrategy, wrote an excellent piece in a recent issue of Food Management Magazine about “Waste Disposal Choices.”   He notes that:
“Waste has become a political and community issue as well as a cost concern.”
This is true and perhaps no topic is more politically sensitive than how foodservice operations dispose of waste [...]