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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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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 will allow people to track waste using specially designed forms and then easily enter it into WasteLOGGER in order to get all the benefits of dynamic reporting and analysis from software.    More info: LeanPath Media Advisory – 2010 NRA Show.

We’re really excited about this because now we will have the ability to help operations of all sizes prevent, avoid and reduce food waste!

The product will be previewed at the NRA show and available in July.  If you’re interested in learning more, please let us know by visiting the Contact Us link on the LeanPath web site.

You see them sometimes on your calendar, or maybe on the local news: National Chocolate Day!  Chile Pepper Festival Day!  Are these holidays real?  When are they?  Yes – they are real and it seems that there is a ‘food’ holiday for almost every day of the year.  A quick search on the internet will reveal a handful of sites.  Check out sites like:  http://www.tfdutch.com/foodh.htm or http://www.foodreference.com/html/historicevents.html

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 by finding a ‘planned reuse’ opportunity.  Plan ahead, freeze/store the overproduced items or trim, then use them on the designated holiday.  If you like a particular holiday – celebrate it more often, quarterly or even monthly.

For example:

National Clam Chowder Day, February 25th – Reuse?  A great way to use up leftover cream, 1/2-n-1/2, or milk from coffee bars or catering services.  Another reuse?  Serve a Vegetable Chowder and use any overproduced/unused vegetables from the entree station – peas, carrots, potatoes.

National Fruit Compote Day, March 1st – Reuse?  Still edible fruit that has a small cosmetic bruise.  Compote can be made in advance and refrigerated or frozen for quite a while.  Make sure it is date stamped and used within the proper amount of time.  Use as a topping or in cobbler and bread pudding.  Fruit compote can even be sold in a separate container – think $5 for a quart of Apple or Pear Pie Filling around the holidays.

National Banana Crème Pie Day, March 2nd – Reuse?  Everybody has those sad, spotty bananas leftover each week.  Sometimes they are used for smoothies, but what about a fabulous Banana Creme Pie?  It’s pretty simple to make; bananas, pudding, whipped cream, pie shell.  Sell the pie by the piece, or as a whole pie.  Promote Pie Day a few weeks in advance and have guests put in orders for whole pies.  They pick them up on Pie Day (paid in advance).  Make various styles – plain crust vs. graham cracker; vanilla vs. chocolate, etc.

**Be creative!  Create several “Pie Days” through out the year – Fruit Compote Pie, Banana Cream Pie, or even savory pies – Chicken Pot Pie, Tamale Pie.  Schedule these special days during slow periods to boost sales.

Waffle Day, March 25th – Reuse?  Not many people have leftover waffles or even leftover flour.  The reuse is in the toppings.  Fruit compote (see above), or warm banana-maple topping (use those brow spotty bananas).  Be creative – add the fruit to the waffle batter or as a topping.

These are just a few of the food holidays over the next few months.  In the future we will be post more holidays and their possible reuse opportunities.

The folks at Waste Aware Scotland have created an i-phone app that helps the home consumer learn how to reduce food waste.

“The app provides consumers with easy to use interactive tools such as a portion size planner; recipe finder for leftover ingredients; weekly meal planner and various hints and tips on how to reduce food waste. The app asks users to put their ingredients into an on-screen blender, (these could be leftovers or ingredients they already have but are not sure how to make into a meal) then simply shake it to create an easy, healthy recipe.”

We tried the blender on our i-phone in the office – very fun!

The idea is to carry this information with you when you go to the grocery store. Using that shopping list with a meal planner helps you to only buy what you need and in the portions required for each meal.  Thus avoiding waste.  No more extra vegetables, or moldy bread that was never used.  One function of the app allows you to select the number of adults and children for each meal. The planner adjusts food quantities – 500 grams of chicken, 6 broccoli florets, etc.   Very helpful when you are in a hurry.

Here is the link for the iPhone App: http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/love-food-hate-waste/id348154861?mt=8

The website; www.wasteawarelovefood.org.uk, like the app, now has a handy portion planning tool and recipe finder for leftover ingredients.  So you can plan your meals and portions from home and take a printed list with you.

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On a similar, but separate note:  if you are involved with foodservice on a larger scale – hospital, university, or corporate dining the app mentioned above will be too small for your needs.  Commercial food productions systems like C-board, Computrition and VST will do the same things, but give you a greatly enhanced experience with menu planning, portion control/cost and even inventory sheets.  Proper purchasing and portion control will help to reduce food waste.

To further identify waste reduction opportunities, you can use a waste tracking system. Either automated (like LeanPath) or manual (paper tracking) will give you the ability to ‘see’ all food items that are being thrown out.  Review your tracking reports periodically to identify goals and monitor progress.

Paul Kuck has just announced a new blog which will focus on the operational side of green foodservice, which would include waste management along with many other topics:

EUGENE, Oregon – October 20, 2009 – Sustainable Foodservice Consulting (SFC), publisher of http://www.sustainablefoodservice.com, is pleased to announce the launch of its new blog, The Sustainable Shift Drink.

 

The blog, accessible at http://www.sustainablefoodservice.com/blog, covers a variety of topics concerning sustainability in the foodservice industry, including local and organic food, energy efficiency, green foodservice products, innovative restaurants, industry trends, national news and more.

Take a look!

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/2009/10/10-campuses-pilot-food-carbon-calculator/ http://blog.leanpath.com/2009/10/10-campuses-pilot-food-carbon-calculator/#comments Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:07:39 +0000 Andrew Shakman http://blog.leanpath.com/?p=687 ARAMARK Higher Education recently announced it will be piloting a food carbon calculator that takes into account all carbon-generating elements of a high-volume foodservice operation, including food waste disposal:

ARAMARK Higher Education, a world leader in providing professional services to more than 600 colleges and universities throughout North America, has partnered with Clean Air-Cool Planet (CA-CP), the leading science-based non profit organization dedicated solely to finding and promoting solutions to global warming, to support CA-CP’s development of the “CHarting Emissions from Food Services” (CHEFS) food service carbon calculator.

To measure carbon impacts precisely, locations need detailed informaton on waste, water and energy.  Water and energy data can be collected from utility meters and bills, just as total waste figures may be collected from your garbage hauler.  However, it’s much tougher to get specific information about food waste generation over time.   And this is critical data if you want to get your carbon calculations correct because food waste has a disproportionately large impact on green house gas generation.

To get this specific data, you can use automated food waste tracking systems (such as those from LeanPath).   These make it easy to continuously monitor food waste generation.  By tracking food waste daily, operators can reduce raw material costs for food (2-4% savings on purchases) while also tracking carbon outputs for purposes of social responsibility reporting .

The Food Waste Flyer newsletter, like the Food Waste Focus blog, is published by LeanPath and shares insights from clients across the US on food waste reduction strategies and food waste tracking.

At home it’s easy.  You look at the electric bill after a month of bad weather and think “Wow!  That’s expensive.”  (That’s the measure part.)  The next month you adjust your thermostat and remind the kids to turn off the lights when they leave a room.  Presto!  Instant savings on the electric bill.  (That’s the manage part.)

Well, what about at work?  What types of things can YOU measure that can be turned into an actionable plan to save money?  What if you aren’t the one who ‘manages‘ those areas – trash, recycling, food purchases?  That’s OK if you aren’t the one that’s in charge of those areas – you can still help by being the one that measures.  Often, measuring a lot of different items help you to find unusual (and easy) forms of savings.  Take a look below at a few different tools that have helped others to measure and what they were able to manage.

First – This link is to an article by GreenBiz (www.greenbiz.com) which states how IBM has implemented a “measuring” process to help them identify different ways to reduce waste or re-purpose existing waste.  http://greenbiz.com/news/2009/07/23/webinar-manage-what-youve-measured

“It’s been the lack of such tools and techniques that has kept most companies from tapping all of the profitable opportunities available to them as they seek to address and improve their environmental performance.”

Second – Check out a great way to measure different types of food waste at www.leanpath.com.  This system can help you identify opportunities for REDUCING WASTE and SOURCE REDUCTION.  Thereby helping you to manage your business even better.

This blog is mainly focused on reducing FOOD WASTE, but we always want to shine a spotlight on any business that works toward the same goal:  REDUCING WASTE and SOURCE REDUCTION.  Great job to everyone!

The true cost of what the global food industry throws away. The world thinks it has a huge food problem—with dire shortages, environmental degradation, and nearly one billion people going hungry. But Tristram Stuart reveals some surprisingly painless solutions in this frontline investigation and personal journey into one of the world’s most pressing environmental and social problems. In Waste, Stuart points out that farmers, manufacturers, supermarkets, and consumers in North America and Europe discard between 30 and 50 percent of their food supplies—enough to feed all the world’s hungry three times over. Forests are destroyed and nearly one tenth of the West’s greenhouse gas emissions are released in growing food that will never be eaten. Introducing us to a motley cast of foraging pigs, potato farmers, food industry CEOs, and freegan cooks, and traveling from China to New York, from Pakistan to Japan, Stuart encounters grotesque examples of profligacy but also inspiring innovations. The result is essential reading for anyone keen to understand how our waste has created a global food crisis. 8 pages of illustrations.