Food Waste Focus

Compostable foodservice disposables (such as bagasse plates, PLA cups, potato cutlery, etc.) have received a lot of operator attention in recent years. However, one of the foodservice sectors that has been slower to embrace these products is healthcare foodservice. Why is the case? Perhaps one reason is that at least 30% of the meal volume [...]

We’re proud to announce that LeanPath will be previewing our new food waste tracking software product at the National Restaurant Show starting this weekend (May 22-25). The software is called WasteLOGGER and it’s designed for operations with lower volumes of production and food waste than those that use our fully automated system called ValuWaste.   WasteLOGGER [...]

Practice Greenhealth recently released a 10-Step Guide to Foodservice Composting.  Although it was written specifically with healthcare foodservice in mind, all the content should be generally applicable to most volume foodservice operations. Download Practice Greenhealth Guide here: Composting 10StepGuide Practice Greenhealth offers many other excellent resources on waste management. Visit their site at www.practicegreenhealth.org.

Day of the Week Waste Reports – Match Waste and Menus Many operators have menus that stay mostly the same day-to-day while others run cycle menus and specials that create regular change.  Regardless of which type of menu you have, it’s very useful to review waste by day of the week.  This step can reveal [...]

Timing is Everything: Watch the Calendar We’ve found that chefs who are successful at maximizing sales and reducing waste are, in most cases, very good at predicting customer demand. The more accurately we can forecast demand, the less likely we are to have leftover items that become waste. The only thing you can count about [...]

In February 2010, we wrote a post about Food Holidays as possible reuse opportunities.  We had great response and wanted to continue posting about these for this month and next. We mention these holidays, because they are fun (of course!), but also because incorporating these dates into your menu can help to reduce food waste [...]

The ‘A-ha’ moment.  It’s that very second when something becomes suddenly obvious to you.  You didn’t realize it before, but you do now.  That a-ha moment takes place throughout life in many different areas.  Today we want to talk about those a-ha moments in food service. We have been speaking with a lot of customers [...]

Just a quick post to let everyone know that you can now get LeanPath and ValuWaste merchandise for your operations.  Many of you have asked about purchasing different items to give out as reward and recognition awards for the staff. Please feel free to visit this site anytime:  http://shop.cafepress.com/leanpath All merchandise has either the LeanPath [...]

We recently ran across an article in Healthcare Design magazine titled: “Where does your facility fall on the greening spectrum?” 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 [...]

LeanPath coaches speak with clients on a regular basis.  Often we learn new information that can help others reduce waste and we like to share those Hints and Tips with you.  When reviewing data with clients often we see spikes in pre-consumer waste that are explained by: “sunny day”, “snow day”, “ice storm”, etc. Keeping an eye on the atmosphere can help you [...]