Food Waste Intelligence

One of Leanpath’s core themes throughout our history is that of engagement; we love to work with engaged foodservice teams who are committed to leading food waste prevention efforts across their platforms.

And through our work in the educational sector, we are often fortunate to be able to support the work of motivated students who recognize the critical importance of the food waste challenge and seek to drive positive change.

As such, when asked to partner with three inspiring Syracuse University graduate students (Reilly Zink, Ruaa Alzharani, and Laura Jayne) from the Dynamic Sustainability Lab (led by Dr. Jay Golden and Dr. Janire Pascual-Gonzalez) in their comprehensive study of food waste across the school’s dining platform, we were happy to comply.

Along with Syracuse Dining and Kristina Wyatt and Anissa Vasquez of the Persefoni team, Leanpath’s Tracy Smith and Steven Finn provided support for the students’ research over the course of the spring semester; important work which yielded learnings for all involved.

Recognizing the critical linkage between food waste and greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), along with the substantial amount of food that goes to waste in collegiate dining halls across the country daily, the student team took a deep dive into food waste at Syracuse University.

Working with members of Syracuse Dining, the team began by quantifying current waste levels at each of the school’s dining halls – collecting one month of data from Leanpath food waste trackers for further analysis.

Digging into the details, the students highlighted the drivers of food waste (ex. overproduction, trim waste, timed-out food, plate waste) at each dining hall, along with the sources of that waste (ex. hot line, salad bar, entrée station, grill) in terms of both weight and dollar value.

They pointed out particular menu items of concern (in terms of their contribution to overall food waste) while also showing the GHG emissions associated with commonly wasted food items.

Further, the students provided effective visuals of emissions tied to wasted food by dining hall and by food category, along with annualized estimates of the financial, social, and environmental costs of food waste across the University platform.

Last, the team engaged in valuable benchmarking, noting several food waste reduction practices at other Universities as a lead-in to their key takeaways and go-forward recommendations for maximizing the impact of Syracuse Dining’s food waste reduction efforts.

Education for change

At the end of the day, food waste reduction at scale – across big platforms – is about behavior change.

And getting there starts with tracking and measurement of each case of food waste in dining operations to capture critical data regarding the “what, why, where, and how much.” Armed with that data and supplemented with integrated software tools (such as Leanpath’s Alert, Goal, and Priority Matrix features) to increase focus on specific waste items and stimulate conversations on how to avoid recurrence, foodservice operators can create a culture of food waste prevention.

Universities feed thousands of individuals each day across multiple locations, three times a day, nearly 365 days a year. As such, they represent excellent opportunities for foodservice leaders to implement a comprehensive food waste reduction program – targeting pre-consumer waste in kitchens while also addressing post-consumer (plate) waste in keeping with the educational mission of preparing students to lead positive change.

And as this group of inspiring Syracuse graduate students showed, understanding the scope and scale of food waste on college campuses unlocks the opportunity to achieve significant financial, social, and environmental gains.

This student research project is a great example of dynamic learnings from the Sustainability Dynamics Lab at Syracuse!