Food Waste Intelligence

Food waste prevention–the only way to address food waste that delivers triple-bottom-line benefits–requires new kitchen tools and workflows. For busy kitchens with thin margins, this rightly brings up questions – and can lead to misconceptions. 

One of the biggest myths about food waste prevention is that it takes too long. In fact, food waste tracking and the prevention it enables not only saves money, it saves time, making kitchen teams more efficient. 

Let’s dig a little deeper into this myth and get a better idea of the actual ROI on food waste tracking.

Six years ago, recognizing the need to drive increased focus on the global food waste challenge, Leanpath partner Compass Group launched an educational campaign designating the last Wednesday in April as Stop Food Waste Day.

Coming just days after Earth Day–with this year’s theme of “Invest in our Planet”–the timing couldn’t be better, because reducing food waste is one of the single most effective levers that the world has to transform the food system. It also is key to accelerate progress toward the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and stem climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

Today, however, it is hard to ignore the financial burden the foodservice industry, and consumers in general, are facing. Global food commodity prices hit an all-time high in March following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). 

Stop Food Waste Day 2022 is a good time to remember that while food waste prevention is one of the most actionable initiatives kitchens can do for the environment, it is also one of the most impactful initiatives for a kitchen’s bottom line.

The foodservice operation at Mt. San Antonio Gardens, a retirement community in California, is run by Sodexo, and serves 1,500 covers a day with buffet and tableside service. The kitchen team, led by General Manager Jack Forrest, began using Waste Watch Powered by Leanpath to track and prevent food waste in 2020. They’ve already prevented 56 percent of their food waste.

Since beginning our partnership in 2014, Google has prevented 10 million pounds of food from being wasted using Leanpath, the equivalent of eliminating 25,000 metric tons of carbon from the atmosphere.

Michiel Bakker, Google's VP of Global Programs, made the announcement along with news of the company’s ambitious prevention goal:

“To protect our planet and keep it healthy, we need to collectively cut back on food waste — for us at Google, that means doubling down on our efforts to reduce waste in our kitchens and cafes. By 2025, we aim to cut food waste in half for each Googler and send zero food waste to the landfill.”

A new report from Stanford University says that the potency of methane as a contributor to global warming is being dramatically undervalued based on an “arbitrary and unjustified” measuring system put in place by the Kyoto Protocol.

The report is the latest in a growing chorus of international calls to put greater emphasis on reducing methane emissions to address climate change. This greater focus on methane, the primary greenhouse gas released from food waste, puts even more importance on the need to address the food waste crisis as a lever in combating global warming.