This summer the LeanPath system has been embraced by a number of universities throughout the country. Using LeanPath these schools expect to save 2-4% on food costs and reduce pre-consumer food waste by 50%. With food costs on the rise, and school starting again, now is the time to reduce food waste at the source and cut costs.

Trayless dining highlights the impact of a food waste management plan focused on prevention. Even with the increasing prevalence of other food waste management practices, at the end of the day it comes down to the first of the three R’s. Reduction is the place to start.

Source reduction presents numerous environmental and financial benefits that can’t be realized with other food waste management practices, such as composting. One of these is the upstream life cycle impact of food waste. Food has a significant impact on the environment long before it ends up in the trash can. From cultivation to harvesting to cooking, the upstream impacts are significant. Food waste prevention also saves money on disposal costs as pounds are kept out of the waste stream.

Trayless dining is a great example of a post-consumer prevention effort; however this same concept should also be applied to pre-consumer food waste coming from the kitchen and serving line. Automated food waste tracking systems, such as those offered by LeanPath provide a method for establishing a baseline, monitoring and benchmarking progress, and driving source reduction. Pre-consumer food waste tracking allows an operator to diagnose specific issues and change production and purchasing practices accordingly. In addition, tracking enhances employee awareness, which leads to behavior change over time.

With countless advances in the field of sustainability it’s easy to lose site of the low hanging fruit related to source reduction, such as trayless dining or food waste tracking. Yet reduction is the place to start. Post and pre-consumer food waste prevention has tremendous benefits, from the bottom-line to the planet.

Pomona is participating — along with seven other institutions –  in a Sodexo pilot program to reduce pre-consumer food waste.  Each operation measures all pre-consumer food waste every day (using automated tracking tools from LeanPath) and then reviews the data before setting specific goals for improvement.

Each participating site also has a Stop Waste Action Team (SWAT) composed of foodservice works.  This group reviews the waste tracking data,  sets specific goals for improvement, and tests waste prevention ideas.  The most effective ideas become permanent.

Read the Pomona “Student Life” newspaper story here.

Some refer to “waste” while others say “food residuals” “food surplus” “food scraps” or “organic waste.” The word choice often varies based on the relationship of the speaker to the food: for example, one chef might see overproduction and call it “food waste” while a food recovery organization might view the very same item and call it “edible surplus” worthy of “food recovery.”

Overall, “food waste” is the most general term and refers to: “any food substance, raw or cooked, which is discarded, or intended/required to be discarded. Food wastes are the organic residues generated by the handling, storage, sale, preparation, cooking, and serving of foods.”

Depending on how someone views this “food waste” they may upgrade or downgrade the terminology to reflect its value to them: it either becomes a valuable “residual” “surplus” or “source separated organic feedstock” or else it remains de-valued and labeled “waste” or “scrap” to be hauled away.

The takeaway: how someone describes the waste tells you a lot about whether they see it as a valuable resource (which it is!). If someone says “oh that’s just waste” they may not be appreciating the opportunity for savings and other beneficial uses.

Resources:

EPA Food Waste Site

In fact, food waste prevention ranks at the very top of the EPAs food waste recovery hierarchy, well above other strategies including food recovery and composting. While each of these other elements are definitely valuable, waste prevention delivers the greatest benefits by far.

For example, by preventing and minimizing food waste:

• You save money. By controlling production and wasting less food, you purchase less or redeploy dollars toward higher priorities.

• You save staff time by being more efficient and not producing items you dont need.

• You save disposal costs by having less food waste volume and weight to haul away.

• You reduce resource demands on agricultural producers, allowing them to use less fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide and fuel.

• You reduce and avoid greenhouse gas emissions and toxicity from food waste downstream at landfills.

With powerful impact, why doesnt food waste prevention get more attention?

There are three reasons:

• Waste prevention isn’t visible or touchable. It’s hard to explain how the absence of something represents a huge victory when people generally want to see things in front of them.

• Some people don’t think they have much food waste or, if they do acknowledge it, believe they can’t do much to improve the situation. Of course, the reality is that every operation has actionable food waste and every operation has a chance to improve.

• Operators and consultants want to attack waste but they dont have any tools in their toolkit for waste prevention. The answer is simple and easy: the key to waste prevention is daily food waste tracking.

“We manage the things we measure.” By tracking food waste every day, you focus staff behavior and collect information to spot problems and opportunities.

Finally, food waste tracking and reporting gives you information that makes prevention highly visible and clearly illustrates the scope of the problem and the positive changes over time. Learn more about LeanPath food waste tracking systems: www.leanpath.com

LeanPath just received a very nice write up from Christina Williams at Sustainable Business Oregon.  The article talks about the new product from LeanPath, called WasteLOGGER.

http://sustainablebusinessoregon.com/articles/2010/06/leanpath_launches_food_waste_tracking_software.html

With ValuWaste Advantage 4, operators now have the ability to create Comparison Reports that contrast the most recently completed weeks food waste against a previous week, a previous menu cycle or a custom time period. These exciting recent additions show specifically which food categories, loss reasons and even stations were “higher” in the previous cycle. This gives you information to work with your team to improve those results the next time.

Enlarge Report | Learn More About ValuWaste Advantage

Veteran LeanPath clients use Comparison Reports to catch “spikes” in the data. They then use this information to immediately focus attention on the “spike” and work with the team to create an action plan to avoid it happening again.

Comparison reports are also used by LeanPath clients to monitor progress on waste reduction goals. Working on a goal to reduce “casserole” waste by 50%? Use a Comparison Report each week to check your progress on this goal vs. the previous week. Things moving in the right direction? Celebrate success with the team, document the Best Practices and keep working on it. Little or no change? Use the data to share with the team and test new actions until you see improvement.

Portland, Ore. -

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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This link will take you to the presentation for “ABC’s of Food Waste Management: Reduction and Diversion“:  http://www.leanpath.com/docs/LeanPath_NRA_ABCs_Food_Waste.pdf

This is the last of the three presentations.

1) Create a written “Food Review Policy” which will be implemented after every meal service. The key aspects of this policy include:

• Bringing all overproduced, unserved food to a central location for review immediately upon conclusion of service
• Ensuring the review is conducted by a culinarian who is fully trained on food safety and HACCP requirements.
• Sort the items and document correctly for HACCP
• Determine an expected use for each retained item
• Communicate the plan

2) Be creative (within safety constraints).  Redirecting extra prepared items might seem like a challenge, but we see breakthroughs all the time. For example, one of our clients has created a café station solely as a venue for secondary uses.  Each day a team reviews saved items and brainstorms ideas to reposition the products.

3) Donate What You Cannot Use. If there is no immediate avenue for a secondary use within the operation, you can donate to a local food rescue organization.  Visit the EPA food scraps site or Food Donation Connection to learn more.

4) Track the leftovers and target future waste prevention. Track the amount of food waste electronically or on paper and use this information to focus staff behavior and minimize future overproduction. Waste prevention is always the ultimate goal.