Food Waste Intelligence

Metz Culinary Management, Inc. (Metz) recently announced its launch of the Leanpath food waste prevention initiative to help its culinary partners curtail waste in meal preparation and service, now operational in 18 Metz dining partner sites.

Metz’s food waste prevention initiative is part of the company’s commitment to environmental stewardship and sustainability across its operations. Metz has set a goal of reducing food waste by 50% by 2030, in alignment with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals for food waste reduction.

“The average commercial kitchen wastes 4% to 10% of the food it purchases before it ever lands on a diner’s plate, with most of that waste coming from overproduction of meals to serve guests,” said Brian Bachman, Vice President of Purchasing for Metz. “By leveraging the Leanpath technology platform, we can measure and track food waste over time, allowing our culinary teams to better align food production to actual demand.”

Through a combination of hardware, software and customer success programs, the platform helps commercial kitchens understand what they are wasting, how they are wasting food in preparation and then adjust their processes to reduce waste.

By following the data and adjusting production across the 18 locations, Metz has generated the following results:

• 30+% food waste reduction
• 74K+ pounds of food waste prevention
• $288K projected food waste savings in first year
• 235K metric tons of CO₂ avoidance
• 29+M gallons of water conserved, the equivalent of 829,553 bathtubs of water

Preventing food waste has a critical impact, resulting in:

• Recouping 2% – 6% of food purchase costs
• Reducing carbon footprint
• Contributing to water conservation by reducing water used to grow wasted food
• Targeting hunger by leaving food in the system for those who need it
  
  

“We launched the food waste prevention program at Arcadia University in August 2022, initially just to get a baseline on what we were throwing out. The photos and the data really opened our eyes to the cost value of what we were wasting,” said Tim Morris, Executive Chef at Arcadia University (pictured left).

“Since October 3, data shows that our team has reduced food waste by 52%, which equates to $14,000+ dollars in saved. We’ve also incorporated an incentive program for our team members who can earn a gift card for reducing food waste.”

Throughout its sustainability efforts such as the food waste initiative, Metz is invested in doing its part to be environmental stewards of the planet by working closely with client partners such as Arcadia University and vendors to protect our precious resources for future generations.

To learn more, check out the September 13 article from Food Management.

Read more success stories from Leanpath partners on our industries page.