Food Waste Intelligence

Aramark Regional Executive Chef Damon Mangano oversees the food and nutrition services at a large Midwestern healthcare system running 11 hospitals. Tracking and preventing food waste with Leanpath since 2017, the system’s kitchens have reduced their cumulative waste 50%.

Chef Damon says from the start, his chefs were startled by the cost of the food they were wasting, which teams see in the Leanpath system as soon as items are tracked.

“From the very start, when cooks saw what the food waste was costing, folk were saying things like, ‘That’s $5000 in a year. Wow, imagine all the stuff we could buy if we didn’t throw that chicken away every night.’”

Food waste is a $1 trillion global problem. And roughly one quarter of that waste is coming from foodservice--a significant source of lost profits for the industry.

The cost of food waste is typically equated with the purchase cost of that wasted food, which makes sense. But the true cost of food waste has to also factor in the cost of the labor used in inventorying, preparing, serving and ultimately discarding that food waste. 

Right now, the world is experiencing a massive labor shortage, the impact of which is falling particularly hard on foodservice. It is a time to remain vigilant about food waste. Because when labor is tight, the pain is particularly acute when a kitchen dedicates staff time prepping food that only goes to waste.

The U.S.-based National Association of College and University Food Service (NACUFS) put food waste as the top sustainability priority among a list of 10 pressing issues in their newly released Sustainability Guide. Recognizing the broad impact of addressing food waste, the guide states, “When the reduction of food waste occurs, climate change, water scarcity, and hunger are impacted, in addition to operational savings.”

Preventing food waste—actually stopping it from being created in the first place—is the most financially and environmentally effective solution available to foodservice organizations. But when edible excess food still occurs and can’t be repurposed internally, donation is the next best thing. 

Leanpath Trackers have always allowed users to identify excess food going to donation. And to provide better insights into those donation activities, we are excited to announce the release of the new Leanpath Donation Dashboard. The Donation Dashboard is a streamlined view of your donation data, displaying key information about your operation’s excess food generation, and its available now for Leanpath users.

The two biggest costs a foodservice operation contends with -- food and labor -- are both way up. The recovery from COVID is unsteady and unpredictable due to the Delta variant. At a time when kitchen staff are being asked to do even more with even less, the typical foodservice operation continues to waste 4% to 10% of the food it purchases.

You simply can’t afford that level of waste and inefficiency, particularly right now. Here are 3 charts to help explain why.