How has Iowa Health tackled source reduction of food waste?

By implementing automated food waste tracking systems from LeanPath, recording pre-consumer food waste data every day.  Iowa Health uses this data to tighten menus, production procedures and purchasing, thereby minimizing and preventing as much food waste as possible.

Iowa Health just published a case study in their in-house magazine titled Hospital Chefs Trimming Costs at the Cutting Board.   Read the article to learn how high volume foodservice operators can make a significant dent in food waste by tracking food waste as a regular, ongoing part of their business.

Titled “Food Waste Prevention Case Study:  Intel Corporation’s Cafes“, the study reports on Bon Appetit Management Company’s use of LeanPath food waste tracking tools to prevent and minimize food waste at two Intel Cafes in Oregon.

The results were impressive:  47% reduction in food waste, over 10% savings in food cost per meal, all while avoiding approximately 100 metric tons of greenhouse gas equivalents.  This was accomplished by implementing daily, automated food waste tracking and engaging a team of employees (plus the chefs) to look at the data and set goals for improvement.

This kind of savings is available to most every foodservice operator – it just requires a little bit of start-up effort to yield outsized gains.

Read the case study here.

Most of us live or work in an area that has some sort of food bank, soup kitchen or food recovery service.  But are we using them?  Do they want the kind of food we have in surplus?  Do we even have enough food to donate?  Are we concerned about food safety and liability?  Click on the link “food donation” to get answers and learn more about what you can do in your area.  This link will answer your questions about:  tax benefits for donating, information about food safety and protection from liability, even the typical types of food donated.  There are also several links to help you find a food bank or recovery site in your area.

Imagine if all food operations in one small town donated all surplus food to their local food bank.  How much food would that be?  How many hungry would they feed?

Here’s an example:  Disney.  It’s a theme park but made to look like a small town with shops, restaurants and hotels.  This ‘small town’ is really making a difference in their food donation efforts.  The Disney Harvest Food Program collects food that has been prepared and not served, donating almost 50,000 pounds of edible food each month!

Let’s all work on source reduction and feeding hungry people.  We can make a huge impact with those two goals.

Although this article focused on healthcare (regulated medical waste, preferred purchasing, etc.), they spoke about a Practice Greenhealth study and their efforts to break ‘greening’ down into specific categories.  By doing this it helps the operations to identify the different areas that support and improve the ‘green’ initiatives.

Take a look at your company.  Is sustainability a separate department or part of every department?  Has the responsibility of sustainability fallen on one person as an addition to their ‘regular’ job? The study sites this:

Greening activity is moving beyond grassroots and departmental efforts towards a more coordinated effort and strategy. In fact, 97% of the applicant pool has a green team at their facility and 52% report the activity takes place within the Environment of Care Committee structure. Green teams provide the structure to gather baseline data, set goals, develop metrics, and through a diverse team approach and subcommittees for specific programmatic areas, work together to improve performance.

At LeanPath, we have found that the operations with Green Teams have higher success rates.  More people are involved, there is better ‘buy-in’ from all levels of staff and management, and everyone shares in the success of each accomplishment.  Gathering baseline data and setting goals helps to make everyone aware of the challenges.  We often see shocked faces when we report the actual pounds and dollars of an operations food waste.  The staff knows they aren’t purposely wasting food, but to see the waste in ‘black and white’, printed on a page really brings the challenge into the light.  Setting and achieving goals in a team dynamic also allows you to get many different solutions to one problem.

Another great reason to use a team approach for sustainability is to gather data on the life cycle of a product.  See the example below:

With an increased focus on waste prevention and life cycle analysis, some waste prevention activities are harder to capture. Cleveland Clinic, for example, boasts an over 25% recycling rate, which recently dipped as they conducted life cycle computing and electronics, which reduced the amount of computer “waste” generated altogether. All computers now go back to the manufacturer for refurbish, reuse, and redeployment. So while one may be impressed by hefty recycling rates, waste prevention activities deserve mention and can sometimes get lost in the numbers. This is why total waste generation should be tracked to reflect waste prevention successes.

An important goal for any type of organization: tracking total waste generation to reflect waste prevention successes.  We encourage everyone to work on waste reduction as the first step.  Purchasing less, producing less – leads to less waste.

Practice Greenhealth has just started tracking data this way, but they intend to continue tracking this data.  This long term tracking will help the industry to see how sustainability grows and trends over a long period.   More trend information should be available after the 2010 Environmental Excellence Awards to be presented at CleanMed 2010 in Baltimore Maryland, May 11-13.

Web links:

1. CleanMed: http://www.cleanmed.org
2. Green Guide for Health Care: http://www.gghc.org
3. Global Health and Safety Initiative: http://www.globalhealthsafety.org
4. Health Care Without Harm: http://www.noharm.org
5. Practice Greenhealth: http://www.practicegreenhealth.org
6. The Center for Health Design: http://www.health design.org

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.”

(View/print this profile)

We are passionate about food waste reduction!  We like to share our experiences, hints and tips with all of you.  Hopefully you can use these tools to reduce food waste in your operation.  We would like to share a new tool with you.  It’s a calculator that can help you learn about the different types of food waste that are created in your operation.  Be sure to select the type of operation from the drop down box (grocery, hospital, restaurant, college, etc.)  The EPA has created this food waste calculator and it looks great!

The calculator estimates the cost competitiveness of alternatives to food waste disposal, including source reduction, donation, composting, and recycling of yellow grease. Specifically, the calculator: Develops an alternative food waste management scenario based on: Your waste profile; Availability of diversion methods; and Preferences, and Compares cost estimates for a disposal versus an alternative scenario. The Calculator demonstrates that environmentally and socially responsible food waste management is cost-effective for many facilities and waste streams.

The calculator is based on a simple excel file and is VERY easy to use.  You type in a few numbers based on your food purchases, disposal costs, etc. and the calculated results show up on a separate tab.  I especially like two tabs – Cost Graphs (visuals are always helpful) and Composting Environmental Benefits (which shows a breakdown of various impacts from your composting).

After you have the results – you can determine which disposal/diversion/reduction method will save you the most money and have the biggest helpful impact on the environment.

To access the calculator click on the direct link:  http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/conserve/materials/organics/food/fd-tool.htm Or go to the EPA main website:  www.epa.gov and search for ]]> http://blog.leanpath.com/2009/10/new-food-waste-calculator/feed/ 0 http://blog.leanpath.com/2009/09/new-edition-of-food-waste-flyer-newsletter-available/ http://blog.leanpath.com/2009/09/new-edition-of-food-waste-flyer-newsletter-available/#comments Mon, 21 Sep 2009 14:05:04 +0000 Andrew Shakman http://blog.leanpath.com/?p=633 Volume 4 of the Food Waste Flyer newsletter was released recently.  It provides a profile of waste reduction and tracking efforts by Chef Ralph Geslao at Lankenau Hospital near Philadelphia, along with a discussion of calculating ROI from food waste management and tips for avoiding waste around the holidays.   Read Volume 4 and subscribe to future  issues.  

The Food Waste Flyer newsletter, like the Food Waste Focus blog, is published by LeanPath and shares insights from clients across the US on food waste reduction strategies and food waste tracking.

I just received an e-mail from our favorite contact at the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  She told me that they are almost finished with the newest version of the Food Waste Calculator.  It should be done later this month (August) and ready for posting on the EPA website at the beginning of September.  Hopefully in time for “Feeding America’s Hungry Action Month” which is the entire month of September.

Just a little info to get you interested…

The first version of the Food Waste Calculator was such a big hit, and received so many requests for additional categories that the EPA decided to create a ‘new and improved’ version.  The new version of the Food Waste Calculator will be a free download directly from the EPA website.  Any type of operator will be able to use it: grocery store, restaurant, hospital, university, etc.  It’s based on Excel and is very easy to use.  Andrew, Dave and Jennifer (that’s me!) from LeanPath were part of the group that tested the updated version of the calculator and submitted comments.

I have to say, it’s very easy to use.  And it’s FREE.  Any type of foodservice operation will be able to see the savings they can achieve just by plugging in a few numbers that they already have, like garbage fees or recycling costs.  There are also a few “yes/no” questions.  The calculator does the math for you and creates a savings analysis on a separate tab.  It gives you several different savings options for reducing food waste or diverting waste to other less exspensive areas.

I can’t say anything further – but keep on the look out for another blog post in a few weeks with the link to the new EPA Food Waste Calculator.

The true cost of what the global food industry throws away. The world thinks it has a huge food problem—with dire shortages, environmental degradation, and nearly one billion people going hungry. But Tristram Stuart reveals some surprisingly painless solutions in this frontline investigation and personal journey into one of the world’s most pressing environmental and social problems. In Waste, Stuart points out that farmers, manufacturers, supermarkets, and consumers in North America and Europe discard between 30 and 50 percent of their food supplies—enough to feed all the world’s hungry three times over. Forests are destroyed and nearly one tenth of the West’s greenhouse gas emissions are released in growing food that will never be eaten. Introducing us to a motley cast of foraging pigs, potato farmers, food industry CEOs, and freegan cooks, and traveling from China to New York, from Pakistan to Japan, Stuart encounters grotesque examples of profligacy but also inspiring innovations. The result is essential reading for anyone keen to understand how our waste has created a global food crisis. 8 pages of illustrations.

These are two great articles from “Food Management” magazine, April 2009.  Andrew recently blogged about these, but here are the links to the full articles.

Green Space: Scaling Back Overproduction: http://food-management.com/segments/healthcare/scaling-back-overproduction-0409/

Strategic Thinking: Always Evaluate the Cost of Doing Nothing:  http://food-management.com/business_topics/equipment/always-evaluate-cost-0409/