Food Waste Intelligence

Garett DiStefano, Director of Residential Dining at University of Massachusetts Amherst, joined the UMass team in 2010 and became Director of Residential Dining in 2011. He oversees the four all-you-can-eat residential dining commons, bakeshop and nutrition program at one of the largest college dining programs in the country, with more than 16,000 students on meal plans and over 40,000 daily meals served. He and his team implemented the LeanPath System in January of 2012, installing Trackers in its two largest dining commons to track and prevent food waste.

Chef Thomas Sacksteder, Certified Executive Chef, joined the Gundersen Lutheran Health System in 1997, where he oversees specialty items in the kitchen and acts as a project manager, generating and supervising new initiatives. He graduated from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, N.Y., and has more than 40 years of cooking experience. He got his start in his family’s restaurant, “Sacksteder’s,” in Dayton, Ohio.

Nancy Goergen has been at Sanford USD Medical Center for over 35 years—watching the organization grow from two buildings to two full city blocks. As the Training and Development Specialist for Food and Nutrition Services, she was integral to the implementation and roll out of the LeanPath system, which Sanford launched in May of 2011. Sanford currently utilizes two LeanPath Trackers at their operation—one in the main kitchen and another in the retail location.

Dwayne Wisniewski, Director of Operations for Sodexo Dining at New Mexico State University, began using the LeanPath system in April of 2012. Since then, he and his team have helped reduce pre-consumer food waste by over 50 percent. We sat down with him to talk about their experience with LeanPath.

Dining Hall Manager Suzanne Paltz oversees two self-operating dining halls at Georgia State University (GSU): Freshman Dining Hall and Piedmont North. She has been at GSU since 2009.