Some of the issues contributing to food waste in developed nations included a lack of storage facilities and infrastructure. Between 20 and 30 percent of food waste occurs before it ever reaches the consumer. Cutting food waste upstream would have significant impacts on both energy use and food security.

McKinsey identified a lack of information as a significant barrier when it comes to food waste.  Without proper tracking and monitoring mechanisms there is no way to properly account for food waste at each stage in the supply chain. “Gathering data within and across countries will be crucial to support concerted efforts to reduce food waste.” Measuring food waste is important to ensure technologies are applied in the right way.

Another important issue to resolve is that we don’t price goods at the appropriate level. The McKinsey report explains that “removing agriculture, energy, and waste subsidies and putting the price of $30 per tonne on carbon emissions would significantly improve the attractiveness of productivity opportunities to private-sector invenstors.” This is important for the consumer as well. We would treat food resources differently if they reflected the true cost.

The take away message is that food waste is a huge opportunity– a 252 billion dollar opportunity to be exact. Forward thinking operators and executives, especially in the foodservice realm, can achieve significant savings by using food resources more efficiently and cutting waste out of the picture.

This summer the LeanPath system has been embraced by a number of universities throughout the country. Using LeanPath these schools expect to save 2-4% on food costs and reduce pre-consumer food waste by 50%. With food costs on the rise, and school starting again, now is the time to reduce food waste at the source and cut costs.

Initial Expectations

The team at Riverside has been using the LeanPath system since June 2009. When they started the program they were hopeful that it would be able to reduce their food costs and waste. “This is especially important considering the current economic climate and the continued drive to do more with less. The system has allowed us to identify some products that were in need of replacement or general system improvement around their production.”

Experience with Waste Tracking

Her overall impression: “[LeanPath's] ValuWaste is great. It helps to raise the awareness for the associates and gives them a chance to contribute ideas to improve the operation. That is an aspect that we pride ourselves in as an organization, so it fit in with our culture. Another component that she enjoys about the LeanPath system, “It is very efficient to process the data and gain action steps so that keeps it achievable”.

“I think it is the right tool for the job. Prior to this, we were manually tracking waste which was very time consuming”. Because of the detailed reports, Jill was able to see how much food was being wasted due to expiration. “With The Joint Commission expectations on holding times, we need to utilize any remaining products or split cases quickly and safely. With an operation of our size, these items were adding up quickly”. She feels that when you look at what a wasted item costs in a week and then take the time to annualize it, you can really see the impact this has on your budget. (One of the features of ValuWaste Advantage 4 is a dashboard that shows how much food is wasted per week and what that adds up to over a full year.)

Recommendations

Her advice to managers new to the LeanPath system is to stay consistent with the program so the associates stay with it. “Make the information a part of associate meetings and recognize them for participating. We build the participation expectation into the annual evaluation review”.

Takeaways

Jill’s initial goal was to reduce food cost. Was this achieved? “When we started the program in June [2009], we were over 8% unfavorable on food cost compared to our budget. We are currently 10% favorable to budget for our YTD”.

In fact, food waste prevention ranks at the very top of the EPAs food waste recovery hierarchy, well above other strategies including food recovery and composting. While each of these other elements are definitely valuable, waste prevention delivers the greatest benefits by far.

For example, by preventing and minimizing food waste:

• You save money. By controlling production and wasting less food, you purchase less or redeploy dollars toward higher priorities.

• You save staff time by being more efficient and not producing items you dont need.

• You save disposal costs by having less food waste volume and weight to haul away.

• You reduce resource demands on agricultural producers, allowing them to use less fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide and fuel.

• You reduce and avoid greenhouse gas emissions and toxicity from food waste downstream at landfills.

With powerful impact, why doesnt food waste prevention get more attention?

There are three reasons:

• Waste prevention isn’t visible or touchable. It’s hard to explain how the absence of something represents a huge victory when people generally want to see things in front of them.

• Some people don’t think they have much food waste or, if they do acknowledge it, believe they can’t do much to improve the situation. Of course, the reality is that every operation has actionable food waste and every operation has a chance to improve.

• Operators and consultants want to attack waste but they dont have any tools in their toolkit for waste prevention. The answer is simple and easy: the key to waste prevention is daily food waste tracking.

“We manage the things we measure.” By tracking food waste every day, you focus staff behavior and collect information to spot problems and opportunities.

Finally, food waste tracking and reporting gives you information that makes prevention highly visible and clearly illustrates the scope of the problem and the positive changes over time. Learn more about LeanPath food waste tracking systems: www.leanpath.com

LeanPath just received a very nice write up from Christina Williams at Sustainable Business Oregon.  The article talks about the new product from LeanPath, called WasteLOGGER.

http://sustainablebusinessoregon.com/articles/2010/06/leanpath_launches_food_waste_tracking_software.html

Portland, Ore. -

LeanPath® proudly announces the introduction of WasteLOGGER, a software solution for food waste tracking that helps any restaurant, hotel, caterer, or foodservice operation prevent, minimize and avoid pre-consumer food waste (which includes overproduction, spoilage, expiration, trim waste). The software runs on existing computers and does not require specialized tracking equipment. WasteLOGGER was previewed at the 2010 National Restaurant Show in Chicago and will be available commercially in Summer 2010.

Food Waste Tracking: Best Practice in Waste Prevention

Food waste management is a core element of any strategy for sustainable foodservice operations and represents a significant opportunity to enhance efficiency and save resources.

“The EPA’s food waste management hierarchy prioritizes source reduction as the critical first step and best practice in food waste management” says Andrew Shakman, President and Co-Founder of LeanPath, Inc. “And the key to source reduction is daily food waste tracking – without daily information you have no way to diagnose food waste, create awareness, or begin to measure progress.”

Green recognition and certification programs (including the NRA’s Greener Restaurants Program and Green Seal’s GS-46 Standard for Green Restaurant and Foodservice Operations) both identify food waste auditing and tracking as a core best practice in any waste management effort.

Food waste is one of the most expensive hidden costs in any restaurant and foodservice operation. Food waste tracking is the simple, easy, and effective antidote. By tracking waste daily, operators can save 2-4%+ on food purchases, while also saving on disposal and labor costs and operating greener facilities.

LeanPath’s Family of Food Waste Tracking Solutions:

For Volume Foodservice & Hospitality: The patented ValuWaste® Automated System, a rugged touch-screen terminal and bench scale used to track food waste 24-7 in volume foodservice operations.

For Other Restaurants & Foodservice: LeanPath WasteLOGGER, a PC-based software tool to track food waste in small to medium-sized restaurant and foodservice operations as well as mobile catering operations, without the need for specialized tracking equipment.

About LeanPath, Inc.

Founded in 2004, LeanPath pioneered food waste tracking and offers several product solutions. Together, LeanPath WasteLOGGER and the ValuWaste System allow restaurants and foodservice operations of all sizes to select the right tools to meet their tracking and auditing needs for food waste.Contact: LeanPath, Inc. (www.leanpath.com) is a technology company providing food waste tracking systems to the restaurant and foodservice industry. LeanPath partners with leading foodservice organizations at sites in more than 24 U.S. states with customers including ARAMARK, Sodexo, Compass Group, and MGM Mirage. For additional information about LeanPath or its products contact the company by e-mail at info@leanpath.com or by phone at (877) 620-6512.

To view the press release from the LeanPath website:  http://www.leanpath.com/releases.shtml
Contact: Carolyn Burleigh, Carolyn.Burleigh@gmail.com or 503/381-1095

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This link will take you to the presentation for “Food Waste Tracking: What you need to know“:  http://www.leanpath.com/docs/LeanPath_NRA_Food_Waste_Tracking.pdf

Next week will post the last of the three presentations.

To answer these questions, you don’t need to start from scratch. Operators should check out a new class of green restaurant and foodservice “standards” (such as Green Seal’s GS-46 standard and the National Restaurant Association’s soon-to-be-revealed Greener Restaurants program) that provide excellent prioritized checklists for your waste management toolkit. These tools leverage the knowledge and experience of industry experts, providing a roadmap that shows what matters most and which steps simply should not be missed along the journey. They also speak to foodservice sustainability and green practices beyond waste management.

Additionally, there are other tools which address specialized foodservice areas such as convention centers, colleges and hospitals (the convention industry APEX standards, AASHE STARS program, Green Guide for Healthcare, respectively). The US EPA also has a powerful central organizing framework called the Food Waste Recovery Hierarchy which helps prioritize.

At LeanPath, we’re excited that most every one of these standards recommends tracking or auditing food waste as a first step in a waste management program. They recognize that waste prevention is the place to start and you can’t make any progress toward that goal without food waste tracking. (Learn more about LeanPath’s automated tracking tools.)

So check out these standards and compare with what you are currently doing. Are you missing a key area? Are you spending a lot of resources on something that doesn’t rate highly or appear at all? Are you addressing food waste prevention by tracking all your pre-consumer food waste every day?

Once you’ve done a self-assessment using the checklists provided by these tools, you can decide whether you want to pursue an official certification or recognition. Green Seal offers formal, third-party certified recognition while most of the other players allow for self-certification. What’s important is to tap into the knowledge underlying these standards first and then, once you’ve started down the path, go get credit for your hard work.

Background

Micah has been with Bon Appetit for the past 15 years and at Intel for the past six. He has a long history in corporate foodservice and has been in the culinary industry for 20 plus years. His first job with Bon Appetit was at a small college in Scotts Valley, California. He then moved on Stanford University, where he became interested in the impact of food scraps on the environment. He started a composting system there as well as at his next two accounts, Pacific University in Stockton, California and at Intel in Oregon.

Experience with Waste Tracking

Chef Micah has been using LeanPath’s ValuWaste system for about a year. He reports that the system has raised awareness in the kitchen of how much product was being wasted. It has allowed his team to focus on problem areas and implement traceable results. In fact, he believes the best part of the program is the traceability back to underlying waste causes.

Initial Expectations

As with many chef customers, he was not sure what to expect from ValuWaste at the onset, but “has been very pleased with the information that I was able to get from the program”.

His biggest surprise about automated food waste tracking? “I was surprised at the steady lowering of waste as it was projected over the duration of the program. It is still going down, which makes me wonder where the bottom will be… zero waste?”

Recommendations

His advice to managers starting or already using the program is to “Be diligent at the scale. Make sure your staff understands the importance of weighing everything that goes in the trash/compost.  Use positive reinforcement to get the staff involved.”

Takeaways

Chef Micah believes that they “made great strides in reduction of batch cooked foods and beverages that would have gone unnoticed into the compost. But thanks to the ValuWaste program it made us examine and come up with a solution that in the end saved us money and time.”

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.