The foodservice program at Eskenazi Health in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, is broad and ambitious. They have traditional patient trays, room service and a cafeteria, but they also have a full-service restaurant that operates Monday through Friday. They have a medically tailored meal program that serves the hospital as well as area nursing homes and adult care facilities. They also have a small-footprint grocery on site, stocked primarily with donated food for low-income area residents. A mobile version of the grocery will launch soon to travel into the area's food deserts. The mobile and stationary groceries also work with local minority owned restaurants to prepare meals.
“We actually touch every county in the state with our meals,” says Director of Culinary and Executive Chef Dugan Wetzel.
Since January 2023, the Eskenazi culinary team has brought the same mission-driven ambition to reducing food waste with Leanpath, cutting their waste by an impressive 32 percent in just three months.
“I think we’re all aware that food waste is a problem in the foodservice industry and the effect it has on people in the world and our own communities,” says Chef Dugan. “It’s kind of a no-brainer to do something about it.”
BRINGING IN LEANPATH
Chef Dugan had worked with Leanpath at his previous healthcare facility, so was familiar with the benefits of the solution. He found it particularly useful to have a tracking system in a busy healthcare kitchen where supervisors simply can’t be everywhere at once.
“Leanpath is a necessity to be completely honest,” he says. “You can have the best supervisors, but things are still going to be missed.”
With pictures of their food waste and real-time data, Chef Dugan and his team can see, for instance, if there’s a food quality issue that’s leading to waste and that requires additional training.
“Or it might be a reduction in the amount of items we are producing for a specific meal. So the next time it comes around on the cycle menu, we just prepare less. Leanpath helps us be more successful. It’s a great system.”
Most of the staff were on board with bringing in Leanpath to make the kitchen more profitable and sustainable, but some were concerned about the time it would take to track food waste. Chef Dugan addressed this by walking the team through the tracking process, which takes about 10 seconds per transaction.
“Then they realize we actually can do less prep when we know how much we’re wasting, that it saves them time. it’s a whole different story then.”
FOOD WASTE SUCCESSES
With the team engaged and tracking their food waste, Chef Dugan began getting Leanpath reports showing his biggest food waste drivers. One of the first things that stood out was the amount of breaded items wasted from the restaurant. Because the kitchen doesn’t use fryers, but ovens, to cook breaded items, it can take longer to prep, leading teams to overproduce to ensure they had enough to last through service. Management identified a different oven that could better prep small batches of breaded items quickly and the overproduction issue disappeared.
“Their job is easier and we reduce waste,” says Chef Dugan.
A second issue–vegetable waste from patient service–also stood out. The solution also involved equipment, but this time the team was able to purchase a new steamer by showing the finance department the dollar savings it would bring in reduced waste.
“We didn’t have the equipment we needed to be successful, and staff needed to rely on bulk prep to keep up with 900 meals a day. We were seeing about $300 per week just in overproduced vegetables. We got it down to about $250 but then hit a plateau.”
Management found a solution, but it required purchasing a new steamer. “We were able to show the ROI of the new equipment based on Leanpath data and got approval to purchase. We don’t see overproduced vegetables in patient service anymore.”
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