Food Waste Focus

As people increasingly recognize that food waste should not be going into landfills (due to methane production, among other issues), a number of alternatives are getting greater attention.  I recently learned about a company that has prototyped a system to feed food waste to the larvae of black soldier flies.  The flies eat about 95% [...]

Restaurant Associates announced this week a new set of Green Dining Best Practices that were developed in conjunction with the Environmental Defense Fund.  You can read the press release or jump through right to the recommendation summary or the details on waste minimization.   They have the right concept by focusing on source reduction as a key [...]

LeanPath is proud to announce the release of ValuWaste 4, the most comprehensive food waste tracking software solution available.  Our team spent almost two years developing this upgrade to our core ValuWaste platform and it reflects a broad range of customer tracking needs, including post-consumer waste.  If you are interested in waste tracking, I encourage [...]

The New York Times had a detailed article on June 4 about how Stonyfield Farms has change the diets of their dairy cows to reduce methane emissions by 18%.   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 [...]

The Veteran’s Health Administration (VHA) cares for veterans across the US at hundreds of hospitals and clinics. As a result, they serve a lot of food and have worked diligently to improve the sustainability of their operation. A VHA foodservice professional recently shared their “Sustainability Checklist” with me – it’s the product of extensive work [...]

Everyone agrees it’s critical to keep food and other organics out of landfills to avoid methane production (a very potent greenhouse gas).  One of the popular strategies is to compost food waste.  I believe composting - when used in conjunction with a comprehensive food waste tracking/source reduction program – can be an excellent solution to divert [...]

Green Seal, the familiar name that certifies the environmental benefits of many cleaning products, recently released a new standard (GS-46) for Green Restaurant and Foodservice Operations.  The standard involved almost a year of development and was created with a rigorous, open process than involved extensive public comment.   I served on the technical committee and saw [...]

Remember that cartoon on School House Rock – “I’m just bill“?  It followed a bill through all the stages of becoming a law. Cute characters, catchy music. Well – this cute video follow “Miles the Can” through the different stages of becoming a can, and then all of his different recycled ‘lives’ – (minus the [...]

We ran across this great article recently. It was published in GreenBiz.com. This article gives a really sharp focus to waste in the work place. Although many of you will probably not collect all the waste from your location like Burt’s Bees – or sift through it in hazmat suits! – a little spot checking [...]

There’s no doubt that restaurants, foodservice and hospitality continue to face an extremely difficult business climate.     Initially, many operators I know “froze” – feeling there was no way to act in a period of such uncertainty.  But slowly that view has thawed and I’m hearing more forward-thinking operators saying: “We’ve got to continue pushing forward.  [...]