We only get to see the food which survives the supply chain.  Whenever we or our guest throws something away there may have been 1-10X+ the weight of that item in “invisible” waste upstream from your operation.    

To help understand the amount of upstream climate impact embedded in every food item, Sweden is now experimenting with climate labeling.  They are printing climate impact information on lables - just like nutrition content.  The data is based on lifecycle analysis so it addresses systemic issues including production inputs, transportation, and upstream waste. 

The NY Times reports that using climate change data to to adjust diets and menus would make a significant difference on greenhouse gas emissions:

Yet if the new food guidelines were religiously heeded, some experts say, Sweden could cut its emissions from food production by 20 to 50 percent. An estimated 25 percent of the emissions produced by people in industrialized nations can be traced to the food they eat, according to recent research here. And foods vary enormously in the emissions released in their production.

Read the full NY Times Article: To Cut Global Warming, Swedes Study Their Plates

This is what’s “cool”:  COOL2012 stands for “Compostable Organics Out of Landfills by 2012“.   Check out the link to get a comprehensive overview of the program.  http://www.cool2012.com/

PROBLEM: Adding food and paper to landfills is heating the planet.

SOLUTION: Get COOL.  Reduce or eliminate these items from landfills. Start with the quickest and cheapest ways to immediately reduce your community’s greenhouse gas emissions.  One of the focal points of this program is to source separate and source reduce your food products and food waste.  (As you know we are big fans of food waste reduction – so we are happy to hear this!)

This is a great goal to work towards.  If everyone can do a little, we can definitely achieve this goal.  Everyone: the home consumer AND the foodservice operator.  Remember – every little bit helps!

(PS – This is also a good program to introduce to your Green Team or Sustainability Department…a few extra points for your initiative!).

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.

http://news.cnet.com/2300-11128_3-10001426.html?part=rss&tag=rsspr.6250028&subj=news

Does your community do this?  If not, recommend it.  Every little bit helps.

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

What, you may ask, does this have to do with food waste? 

The answer is that chefs and managers who are working to reduce food waste in their operations are working on the same problem as Stonyfield farms.

Food waste breaks down into methane in landfills.  When it escapes landfills, this potent greenhouse gas (GHG) damages our environment.  When we avoid landfilling food waste, we reduce GHG emissions.   The same seems to be true of changing cow diets.

The importance of this:  Expect to see a trend at some point soon involving  chefs purchasing dairy products from farms implementing low-methane diets.  Just as we avoid rGBH dairy products, we’ll start to look at the carbon footprint of all those cow belches!