Food Waste Intelligence

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 Goal...

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 ai...

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 ...

When COVID-19 took hold in 2020, one of the first dramatic changes in foodservice was the disappearance of buffets and salad bars. As the industry (and the world) continues to return to something more like a pre-pandemic normal, self-serve operations continue to come back online. Las Vegas, one of the buffet capitals of the world, continues its dining return; Disney Parks continues reopening buffet service; and one of the U.S.’s leading college trend setters, Penn State, just reintroduced self service. While this is positive news for ...