Starches a sticky issue

When starting a tracking/prevention program, it’s often the starches that are one of the highest waste items. Why? Starches (pasta, rice, potatoes, etc.) are an accompaniment to most dishes, thus are often produced in bulk while more “expensive” center of the plate items are more closely monitored.  It’s often not till we start tracking these items that operators realize how much starch waste happens daily, making it a good target for reduction.

• Monitor Production:  How much do you really use?  Often we start will full pans of starches and continue to produce full pans until the end of service.  Instead of continually keeping  pans at the ready throughout the service, prepare for the initial rush and then batch produce in smaller vessels as service winds down.  Don’t get pan tunnel vision when preparing these items, back-up can just as easily be in a half pan or smaller.
• Have a plan: Pay close attention to the sides, menus and where they can be used.  Look for opporunities to use a starch across multiple offerings.  If potatoes or rice can be spread across the menu and is not just destined for one dish, there is less likely to be large amounts of leftover.  As one station winds down have a plan in mind for moving leftover starches to other stations to use up any excess. 
• Target re-use opportunities: What can be done with the leftovers?  If the items were never put out, they can be re-dressed into future items.  Rice can be used in puddings, soups or ethnic dishes.  Noodles that were not sauces can be saved for use in salads on the salad bar, into a frittata dish or soups. Potatoes can be re-issued into soups, used as homefries, made into mash potato pancakes and one client even pureed leftover french fries for usage as a thickener.

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.

Breakfast: Cutting the Pork

When starting a tracking/prevention program, it’s easy to overlook wasted breakfast meats. Why? Many cafe operations are focused on high volume lunch service, so the few stations that are open in the morning get setup early, loaded with par levels, so staff can focus on the upcoming lunch service.  However, if operators review food waste tracking data for the morning, they often see a recurring pattern: lots of discarded, relatively-expensive breakfast meats.  this is a great opportunity for waste prevention.

• Review par levels: Use tracking data to determine the pattern of how much bacon, sausage or other breakfast meats are regularly left over.  Back off initial production levels to still allow for prompt guest service, without leaving all the leftovers.  Instead of multiple full sheet pans of bacon, make the secondary production on half sheet pans or cook to order as breakfast service starts to wind down.
• Consider Re-use Opportunities: Pay close attention to food safety rules, safe handling practices and quality and then find alternative uses for the leftover breakfast meats.  Bacon–crumble the bacon for the salad bar to reduce purchasing on often expensive bacon toppings.  Or utilize the leftover bacon topping for other dishes, as a value add for baked/mashed potatoes or in other recipes from soups to casseroles.  Sausage–utilize leftovers as a topping for pizza or save for sausage gravy.  Great ways to add flavor, value and reduce waste!

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.

The software is called WasteLOGGER and it’s designed for operations with lower volumes of production and food waste than those that use our fully automated system called ValuWaste.   WasteLOGGER will allow people to track waste using specially designed forms and then easily enter it into WasteLOGGER in order to get all the benefits of dynamic reporting and analysis from software.    More info: LeanPath Media Advisory – 2010 NRA Show.

We’re really excited about this because now we will have the ability to help operations of all sizes prevent, avoid and reduce food waste!

The product will be previewed at the NRA show and available in July.  If you’re interested in learning more, please let us know by visiting the Contact Us link on the LeanPath web site.

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.

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.  Pizza is one of the items that’s a great seller but can also be an expensive waste item if not monitored.

Pizza Tips:

1. Individual Pizzas vs. Large Pizzas-Instead of making large pizzas with toppings ahead of time clients have had success moving to individual pizza sizes.  By making up the individual size crusts and topping them on demand, you can better gauge that days sales and adjust varieties accordingly.  Also, individual pizzas can be more visually appealing, you’re not left with the final few pieces of a whole pie that customer might not want.
2. If your doing large pies consider adding “1/2 and 1/2″ pizzas to the mix as closing time approaches.  Making 1/2 and 1/2 pizzas allows you to keep your display looking great and preserves a full range of choices for the guests.  From a waste perspective, you avoid placing an entire pie of one variety out just to sell one or two final slices.
3. Make use of the leftover dough, if you have leftover pizza crust that’s par baked you can make it into bread sticks for the pasta station or salad bar. If you have dough that can not be saved you can make that into cinnamon rolls or calzones.

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.

Executive Chef – Banquets, MGM Grand Conference Center

Las Vegas, NV

Chef Jennifer Bargisen has been with the MGM Grand for the past four years and has 17 years experience working in the US and internationally. She has dedicated the past eight years primarily to large volume and 5-diamond operations. Chef Jennifer is actively engaged in sustainable operational practices focusing heavily on consumption habits and patterns.

Chef Jennifer’s overall impression of automated food waste tracking (using LeanPath’s ValuWaste System) is that it has been “integral in quantifying consumption and waste patterns.” Identifying these patterns leads to “decreased usage, production, waste, and overall inefficiencies.” At the same time, it has “truly allowed [her] to have data to support ordering patterns and guest consumption expectancies”

The ValuWaste System has been in place at the MGM Grand Conference Center for the past four years. Her initial expectations have been “exceeded because LeanPath has been instrumental in understanding our specifications and individual requirements.”

The MGM Grand Conference Center has been able to reduce food cost due to their use of ValuWaste. Chef Jennifer reports the highlight of waste tracking is getting “solid data” that shows “what customers are consuming” that supports “calculated ordering adjustments.”

Her advice for new managers starting waste tracking: “Embrace the idea of placing dollar values on the waste produced in order to improve on your inefficiencies.”

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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.  Soup and Chili are usually tops on our clients list once tracking starts. A necessary item for all facilities to carry, but through monitoring the amount of soup waste you have and using that information as a teaching tool with the employees our clients have found they can impact the amounts of soup/chili waste they have and drive the totals down. 

Soup and Chili Tips:

1. Noodle Now or Noodle Later? When dealing with products that require a starch (noodles, potatoes or rice) clients have had success with holding out the starches from back-up stock until they are called into service.  This increased the opportunity for re-use of these products if they are not needed during this service period.  By keeping the items separate you avoid the starchy “glue” that often prohibits re-use when these soups are cooled and have a broth ready for re-heating and starches ready to add.
2. Change batch cooking procedures and make small batches throughout the day.  Instead of firing off multiple gallons of product first thing in the AM, prepare the product but do two or three batches during the day to react to needs.  If more is needed for lunch, a smaller batch can be quickly fired off.  Also, You’ll have fresher product for the evening if you make a second smaller batch in the afternoon to supplement the carry over from lunch.
3. Watch the weather, change procedures based on the day or the season.  Be sure to cut back production in the summer or if you have a nice spring day on the way.  Also watch chili waste as the weather warms, some clients that offer multiple varieties each day during the winter cut back to one during the summer months and rotate the different varieties through the cycle.
4. Look into how you make your soup and consider a ready made product.  Some clients after analyzing waste and labor dollars have changed to ready made soups vs. scratch production.  These bags allow them to react quicker to the service periods needs and help them monitor production because it’s made one bag at a time.

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.

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.  Many facilities believe that trim waste is a necessary part of business and little can be done to impact the amount.  But through monitoring the amount of trim waste you have, and using that information as teaching tool with the employees or purchasing, our clients have found they can impact the amounts of trim waste they have on a daily basis. 

Trimming Practices:

1. When first looking at how employees trim items people often find there’s quite a difference between the way they think things should be done and how they are actually done. Review trimming procedures with the staff frequently so employees know the importance of proper trimming in order to maximize yields.  Be sure to schedule trim training on a frequent basis and review trim buckets often.  Are the employees coring out the tomatoes and strawberries or lopping off the top third?  Are they taking care in beef trimming to make sure that the minimum amount of muscle is removed? 
2. Keep an eye on staff changes and if your chief trimmer is on vacation or leave make sure the fill-in knows proper procedures or you won’t be getting the required yields.  In larger facilities weekly tracking numbers can highlight these increases and alert chef’s that there’s a possible issue.
3. Do the employees have the proper tools and are they in good condition?  Make sure that knifes and slicers are sharp.  One client upon reviewing trim waste from deli meat increased the frequency of blade sharpening and found that this cut down deli meat trim waste to almost nothing.
4. Tracking data on trim waste can also highlight product issues that can often be associated with changing seasons. if you see the pounds increasing this could mean that there’s a variance in product quality and as the season change, your ordering should as well.
5. Is trimming the end of the line for that item?  Often trimmed items have alternative uses in the operation and with a bit of creativity can be re-utilized.  Making stock with trimmings is one common usage that our clients have found for trim waste.  Also, one client ran a “trim waste idea” contest with their employees and from that contest came the idea of using certain fruit trimmings for cobblers that they could sell on their dessert station.  Challenge the staff with this idea and you might be surprised at what they come up with!

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.

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.  Our clients often struggle  batch cooking levels and finding the right “multi-batch” approach and are surprised by their numbers when reviewing their overproduction data.  This overproduction data is a great avenue to review batch cooking in their operation and make incremental changes to lower their overproduction waste.

Monitor Batch Cooking Levels:

1. Keep an eye on quanities of items often batch cooked and produce to historical par levels by staff. Look at your recent sales traffic and batch production levels compared to your overproduction records. If you find your team consistently overproducing excessive amounts of product these items they are good candidates for smaller initial batches and more on-demand cooking as the meal period winds down.
2. People concentrate on the the “center of the plate items” but the largest contributors to overproduction are the accompanying starches and produce that often don’t get the same attention during production. Need more? As you near the end of service fire off 1/2 and 1/3 pans of these items instead of full pan. They’ll cook quicker and help you minimize waste.
3. Keep an eye on breakfast items these items are one of the biggest “sneaky waste” areas our clients see. The staff focus is often on lunch preparations in the morning and staff overproduce batches of eggs, potatoes and breakfast meats.  Review your overproduction data from breakfast and start with smaller batches and fire more as needed or move to on-demand cooking for the last 30 minutes of service. Have breakfast leftovers? If the items are still a good quality item and adhere to all safe food handling practices work these items into your daily menu: eggs for fried rice, bacon crumbles for the salad bar and sausage crumbles for pizza.

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.