Food Waste Intelligence

The dining operation at Arcadia University in Pennsylvania, USA, run by Metz Culinary Management, serves more than 1,000 meals a day, primarily from its all-you-care-to-eat dining hall.

Executive Chef Timothy Morris and his team have been using Leanpath to track and prevent their food waste for one year. In that time they’ve already reduced waste by an impressive 45 percent.

“It’s really important to me to have the kitchen running as tight as possible,” the chef says. “With the cost of food always going up and the money we’re bringing in not always going up with it, trying to squeeze every dollar out of our food is very important.”

Leanpath has given them the precision tracking they need to control their food waste.

“Before Leanpath we relied on production sheets to help us understand what was coming in and what was going out,” says Chef Timothy. “Those weren’t always accurate. Leanpath gives us tangible numbers so we know what is being wasted and we can see what’s being wasted.”

MAKING FOOD WASTE VISIBLE

And when Chef Timothy says “see” what’s being wasted, he means that literally. Arcadia uses the Leanpath 360 Bench Tracker with image capture.

“My favorite part about Leanpath are the pictures,” he says.

Chef Timothy uses the food waste photos in two primary ways. First, he reviews photos for the shifts he is not present to understand the decisions the crew is making in his absence.

“When I’m here, I can control what's going on at lunch, what’s being fired when, what’s leftover. Then I rely on my crew at other times. What was getting thrown away when I wasn't here was kind of eye opening.”

He uses the photos as educational opportunities. He describes seeing a picture of a full pan of French fries being wasted at the end of service. He told the team not to fire so much fries so close to the end of service. Or seeing a pan of chicken breast that had been wasted.

“We could repurpose that into something else,” the chef explained, “and that means less work for you the next day. We can save it, cool it down properly, chop it up, that’s your chicken salad for tomorrow. And it’s already prepped.”

Chef Timothy also leverages the emotional impact of the photos during his biweekly team meetings. “I’ll pull out my monitor and just scroll through the pictures. It’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, we wasted that.’ I have people that have worked in foodservice for 20 or 30 years. They’re just used to throwing everything away. When you stop and sit down and see, this is what you’re throwing in the trash, that’s $20 worth of food.”

OTHER FOOD WASTE STRATEGIES

Overproduction is the biggest source of food waste in most foodservice kitchens, and Chef Timothy works with his team at every pre-shift meeting to keep it under control. He’ll go over the upcoming menu and review what should be cooked to order and what should be batch cooked.

“If we have steamed broccoli on,” he explains, “when that pan gets low, steam another one. We don’t need a pan in the warmer since it only takes 3-4 minutes to cook to order. Leanpath has helped drive home the reason we don’t batch cook everything. It puts a picture to the point. What’s the point of having that back up pan of eggs if it’s just getting thrown away?”

Chef Timothy says the fact that all their buffet service is staff-served behind a sneeze guard, so as long as time and temp are maintained, he can repurpose most leftovers.

If there’s leftover mac and cheese from the buffet, for instance, he’ll package it up as a meal to go option in the retail outlet. Safely repurposed ingredients can be used in other recipes where it makes sense.

“Anytime I have white rice on the menu, I will repurpose the rice in another recipe like fried rice or jambalaya.”

And he keeps his team engaged in the food waste process. He uses Leanpath’s instant win feature to flag every 100th transaction. The team member gets a $10 gift card.

“And there's zero negativity with this. No one’s getting in trouble for tracking food waste,” he says. “We’ll talk about it and come up with ways to avoid that waste the next time, but nobody is getting written up. They’re helping us be more efficient by tracking food waste.”

LEARN MORE ABOUT HOW METZ CULINARY IS PREVENTING FOOD WASTE
Watch a webinar with Chef Timothy and other Metz chefs