The winner in the “Good Neighbor” category was the Nutrition and Food Services Team at the VA Medical Center in Martinsburg, West Virginia.  They were recognized for the totality of their sustainability efforts, which include a food waste prevention program called Waste Watchers.  From the news release:

Good Neighbor Award: Nutrition and Food Services Team, Department of Veterans Affairs, Martinsburg, W.Va. VA’s Martinsburg Medical Center’s Nutrition and Food Services’ Green Kitchen brought together local farmers, VA staff and veterans to bring healthy, locally grown foods from veteran-owned farming businesses to the cafeteria. This initiative decreased landfill food waste by 86 percent, contributed 265 pounds of weekly food donations to a non-profit veteran’s transitional housing group and increased collection of food waste for composting. In addition, the project’s efficient kitchen equipment and operations improved energy and water conservation.

LeanPath is proud to have partnered with the nutrition team in Martinsburg on their Waste Watchers effort.  They use LeanPath food waste tracking tools to measure all pre-consumer food waste, and this has helped them reduce waste by over 80%.

Read the full story on the GreenGov Presidential Awards.

Also view a TV news story detailing the food waste reduction strategies and successes in Martinsburg: “Extra Food Goes to Farmers, Non-Profits Instead of Garbage – Your4State.com“

Take the Food Recovery Challenge!

How much of your food and money are you literally throwing away?  In 2008, American businesses and households generated 32 million tons of food waste.  Of that, 31 million tons (97%) was thrown away into landfills or incinerators!

Much of this “waste” was not waste at all, but actually safe, wholesome food that could potentially feed millions of Americans or discards that could be recycled (composted) into a nutrient rich soil amendment.  And since food is such an incredibly valuable resource that can be used to protect our soil and water or grow our next generation of crops, there are just so many better uses for it to consider before putting in a landfill or incinerator.

Which is why the US EPA Food Recovery Initiative and the WasteWise Program have joined forces to challenge business, industry, and institutions to reduce, donate, and recycle as much of their food waste as possible – saving money and helping protect the environment.  And through the Food Recovery Challenge, participating organizations have the opportunity to receive national recognition for their outstanding Challenge achievements.

Take the Food Recovery Challenge and together – let’s take a bite out of food waste!

To join us and to learn more – go to www.epa.gov/foodrecoverychallenge

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.

The new changes include:

• revisions to the food waste recovery hierarchy to clarify the placement of Anaerobic Digesters (they live in the composting tier of the hierarchy),
• additional resources and links
• clarification on Good Samaritan Laws about food waste donation.

I recommend this site as a regular stop for foodservice operators, foodservice consultants, and other industry participants.  If you have never been, or haven’t seen the new updates, make a point to visit!

The map is a collaboration between the USDA Economic Research Service, the Agricultural Marketing Service and the Food and Nutrition Service to share data resources. The map is also designed to include geographic coordinates for farmer’s market locations and farmers markets/farm stands with EBT redemption capabilities in the US. This is an incredible piece of work.

You can view the country as a whole or by individual state.  Clicking on any of the map indicators allows you to see:

· Access and proximity to grocery stores

· Availability of different food stores (convenience stores with food, super- and bulk-stores, etc.)

· SNAP and WIC authorized stores

· Availability of restaurants and Expenditures of food at restaurants

· Food assistance

· Food eaten at home

· Food insecurity

· Food prices (at stores, not restaurants)

· Food taxes

· Health

· Local foods (farms with direct sales to consumers, farmers markets, etc.)

· Physical activity levels & outlets

· Socio-economic characteristics

Click here: http://maps.ers.usda.gov/FoodAtlas/

]]> http://blog.leanpath.com/2010/02/food-environment-atlas/feed/ 0 http://blog.leanpath.com/2009/10/new-food-waste-calculator/ http://blog.leanpath.com/2009/10/new-food-waste-calculator/#comments Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:10:04 +0000 Jennifer Hancox http://blog.leanpath.com/?p=700 Hello everyone:

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/sept-12th-international-plastic-bag-free-day/ http://blog.leanpath.com/2009/09/sept-12th-international-plastic-bag-free-day/#comments Fri, 04 Sep 2009 11:36:43 +0000 Jennifer Hancox http://blog.leanpath.com/?p=584 Hey Everyone!

Lets do this!  Our friends at Waste Aware Scotland are spending the news about the first International Plastic Bag Free Day on Saturday, September 12th: http://tinyurl.com/mgor6s

This is a great way to ‘source reduce‘ all those nasty plastic bags we get from the store.  Take a reusable cloth bag, use your backpack, messenger bag or just your pockets.  (Do you really need a bag for a pack of gum and a Snapple?)

Mark your calendars. Forward this e-mail to all your friends and colleagues!

PS:  Those plastic bags are made out OIL.  If you want your fuel prices to stay the same (or go down) – reduce your dependence on other oil-based products…like disposable plastic bags.

Just attended a good training webinar for the NEW Re-Trac program from WasteWise.  Re-Trac is a great program that can be used by any type of operation to “collect, organize, analyze and report” all recycling and waste.  Re-Trac is a web-based system that allows an operator to track many different types of waste:  Municipal/Solid Waste, Buy/Manufactured recycled product and several others.  Everything type of waste is tracked from wood, paper products, computers, batteries, to just about anything else.  (They also include “food” as a category – but it is meant for “food” as a general group.  To get very detailed food waste information – you will need a dedicated tracking system, either manual tracking or automated tracking like LeanPath’s systems.)

First you have to join WasteWise and they will give you access to the Re-Trac website.  Throughout the year simply log on to the site and type in the type of waste, measured in pounds or tonnes and what happened to the waste – source reduced, recycled, incinerated, or landfill.  The data gets saved – you get great reports – the EPA/WasteWise team gets real data to use in their studies.

By the way – one of the reports is just amazing!  The report equates the amount of product recycled/reduced/composted to number of trees saved (or pounds of Carbon reduced, or…).  Just a really super idea.  It’s something you can print and share with your staff to validate all their hard work at recycling and source reduction.

Check it out:  Waste Wise http://www.epa.gov/waste/partnerships/wastewise/index.htm

They focus on a range of food security issues, but target food waste as a major problem, noting:

Reducing food waste has the potential to cut carbon emissions equal to taking a fifth of the country’s traffic off the roads.

Read more about the reports in the Guardian or go right to the source material.