Food Waste Focus

Restaurant operators again are reporting accelerating food costs, according to the National Restaurant Association’s Tracking Survey. Restaurant operators reported a 2.7 percent increase in average food costs between October 2011 and October 2012, the strongest 12-month gain since March. With food costs steadily increasing, it is essential for restaurants to tackle food waste. Pre-consumer food [...]

Food waste is a global problem of breathtaking scope. A third of all food globally is wasted. And within the U.S. it’s even worse: 40% of food is not eaten—a 50% rise from the 1970s. As foodservice operators, many of us are trying to get upper management to focus on this issue and do something [...]

Last week Philadelphia mayor Michael A. Nutter and the Philadelphia Streets Department announced the launch of a new program called “Clean Kitchen, Green Community,” a pilot initiative aimed to assess how food waste disposers can help the city work toward its goal of becoming the greenest city in America. The city is partnering with InSinkErator, [...]

To summarize the numbers: 40% food waste. 2% of U.S. energy embedded in food waste. $252 billion dollars lost per year globally. Fortunately, there are solutions.

Most people are aware of food waste on some level. As young children you may have heard the phrase “clean your plate.” This awareness, though, doesn’t necessarily translate into action. Leakages occur throughout the lifecycle from production to preparation and finally consumption. In 2011 food waste has become a topic of increasing importance for three [...]

The American Hotel and Lodging Education Association recently published a new book on green foodservice titled: Greening Food and Beverage Services: A Green Seal Guide to Transforming the Industry. This book was developed by Green Seal, the well-known non-profit organization which develops science-based standards to certify green claims. In 2009, Green Seal released GS-46, a [...]

When we think about food waste we often focus on the final stage of the life cycle, the landfill. Although keeping food waste out of the landfill is beneficial, this is just a small portion of the total environmental impact. From cultivation to disposal there are impacts throughout the entire chain. In a recent article [...]

The CBS Early Show ran a story on residential food waste on November 17th.  The piece focused on all the food thrown away in American homes. Read the CBS Story Although the challenges described in the CBS story are not at the same scale as those faced by commercial foodservice operations, some of the same [...]

There has been a lot of focus in recent months on using food waste as a feedstock to generate energy through anaerobic digestion. Several major players are working on this, including Waste Management via their investment in Harvest Power. This week a Northwest company announced plans to build a food waste biogas facility in Portland. [...]

The American Hospital Association just unveiled a new web site designed to educate hospital CEO’s and trustees about sustainability in healthcare.   Titled the “Executive Primer on Hospital Environmental Sustainability” the site includes overviews of several topic areas, including Food. The food section of the web site discusses waste as one of the key trends [...]