This book was developed by Green Seal, the well-known non-profit organization which develops science-based standards to certify green claims.

In 2009, Green Seal released GS-46, a standard for the foodservice and restaurant industry which summarized many practices related to food waste management.  I was a member of the technical advisory committee for this standard.  The final result was very comprehensive and benefited from a transparent, ISO-certified development process which invited comments from a broad range of stakeholders.

The new Green Seal book is a unique resource on foodservice sustainability.  It builds on the foundation of GS-46 and offers information on the full-gamut of foodservice sustainability topics in more detail and with greater scope than has been available previously.  I was honored to contribute the chapter on food waste management and believe it represents the most complete summary of my perspectives on this topic that I have prepared to-date.

Foodservice professionals with an interest in sustainability – and food waste – will want to learn more about this book by visiting the publisher’s web 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

A green meeting is one that: “through sustainable practices and taking environmental considerations throughout all stages of a meeting, will minimize the negative impact on the environment“. Basically, incorporate good, sustainable practices into planning a meeting – through every aspect – menu (local, organic), composting florals after an event, using water pitchers instead of disposable plastic bottles. All of these are great starting points. But what else can you do?

As you may have experienced already, many customers have become more aware of their own environmental impact and are transferring that knowledge to business and event planning.   Increasingly they ask about your sustainability initiatives.   Whether you are a convention center, large foodservice operator or a small in-house café that does office catering, a ‘green’ meeting can help you be more desirable to your customers.

Two groups have developed a series a guidelines to help operators make all of their meetings go green. Some are actual certifications (like LEED is for buildings), and others can be used more like a checklist. Take a look at both – you will have plenty of new ideas to incorporate into your business.

We wanted to pass along a few links from the Green Meeting Industry Council that will help you in the Food & Beverage and Waste Management areas. http://www.leanpath.com/lpweb/markets_hospitality.htm

The other group that is doing a great job with a comprehensive set of green meeting guide lines is APEX – Accepted Practices Exchange http://www.apexsolution.org/

The guidelines include Destinations, Meeting Venue, Transportation Committees, Accommodations, AV, Communication, Food and Beverage (section 3), Exhibits and Onsite Office. They are almost completely finished with the nine final drafts of the APEX/ASTM Green Meeting and Events Standards. Those are available for review on a new blog site http://wp.apexsolution.org/.

Please check out these different websites to learn new ways to ‘go green’ with your meetings.

It’s great to see this standard has a section that gives points for dining services composting and food donation programs.  It also offers points for overall campus waste reduction (reduction, not diversion).   It is disappointing that no points are offered for food waste minimization efforts such as food waste tracking, however, I expect AASHE would allow those to qualify as innovations – they give points for that too.

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.

Given Seattle’s leadership role on most waste issues, this is an interesting outcome and raises questions about how citizens want to arrive at certain types of waste reduction goals.   There are many options, ranging from voluntary source reduction to recycling and economic incentives or deterrents.  It seems, at least in this economy and in Seattle, economic deterrents are not the way people want to go.

They focus on a range of food security issues, but target food waste as a major problem, noting:

Reducing food waste has the potential to cut carbon emissions equal to taking a fifth of the country’s traffic off the roads.

Read more about the reports in the Guardian or go right to the source material.

Interestingly, they have concluded that use of garbage disposers  to handle food waste provides “positive impacts” on their system and they describe why right here (PDF)in their summer newsletter.

However, the Swine Health Protection Act (SHPA) was passed by Congress in 1980.  The act regulates any food waste containing meat that is served to swine:

In accordance with the SHPA and Federal regulations, food waste containing meat may only be fed to swine if it has been treated to kill disease organisms.

This means, in most cases, cooking that food waste before serving it.  Perhaps as a result of the extra hurdles created by this legislation, the misconception that donations were banned by the law (they weren’t), or other factors, the practice of food waste donations to feed animals has diminished over time. 

But is still a viable option to donate food to pig farms today and, if so, is that a better thing to do than compost the waste?

The quick answer, based on guidance from the EPA,  is “yes it’s possible and it’s preferable to composting.”   However, you need to have a local farmer that is capable of treating the product in away that fully complies with the SHPA.

Specifically, the EPA includes “feeding animals”  as part of its overall food waste management hierarchy:

EPA Food Waste Management Hierarchy

The EPA also shares this case study.  In Las Vegas, many of the large hotel casinos donate their food waste to RC Farms.  Also, here’s a recent TV news story from Utah about a restaurant owner who not only donates food waste, but actually owns the pigs that eat it!

Keep in mind that “source reduction” and “feeding people” are both higher on the EPA food waste hierarchy than “feeding animals.”  However, “feeding animals” does rank higher than composting or industrial applications (e.g. biodiesel). 

This is something to keep in mind if you have the choice between donating to a local swine operation (that will comply with the SHPA) or putting that food waste into composting or landfill.

They have the right concept by focusing on source reduction as a key strategy!