Food Waste Intelligence

Earth Day is April 22. There’s never a wrong time to talk about the impact of food waste prevention on the environment, but Earth Day seems particularly well suited. Each day in the seven days leading up to Earth Day? Even better.

If your organization is committed to food waste prevention, we encourage you to remind your team of the critical work they are doing to address some of the world’s greatest sustainability challenges. Beginning April 15—one week before Earth Day—incorporate one reason why food waste prevention matters a day into communications with your teams, either in emails or directly in morning meetings in the kitchen. 

If you’re not yet working to prevent food waste, share these with corporate decision makers and sustainability teams. And remind them, food waste prevention—actually stopping food waste before it is created—is the only way to impact all these environmental issues, while also having a financial impact on your bottom line. 

Here are 7 mind blowing food waste impact statements that can help shift the hearts and minds of your kitchen teams as you focus on why food waste matters leading up to Earth Day this year:

As part of its global rollout of food waste prevention technology, Sodexo has introduced Leanpath at seven locations in Thailand, including leading hospitals and international schools. 

WasteWatch Powered by Leanpath, Sodexo’s internal food waste prevention program that leverages Leanpath technology and support, has reduced waste at active sites by an average of 50 percent and has been rolled out at 1,200 sites globally. Sodexo’s global goal is to reduce its cumulative food waste 50 percent by 2025.

In its 2020 Environmental Report, released March 2, Google announced its food waste prevention success: 9.2 million pounds prevented since 2014, through its work with Leanpath in hundreds of Google Cafes around the world.

“We constantly devise inventive solutions to repurpose food and to compost and donate leftovers wherever we’re legally able to do so,” the report states. “However, we’ve learned that the best way to reduce food waste is to prevent it in the first place by tracking data and making adjustments.”

Throughout 2020, headlines reminded us of the disruptions the pandemic was having on the global food system. The images of food waste accumulating on farms and milk being dumped because distribution networks were shut down were stark reminders of how fragile the food system is. Put against the increased number of people going hungry as economies faltered, the public was left with a clear message: something has to be done about food waste.

With that clarity, it is no surprise the issue of food waste topped annual trend forecasting reports for consumers, the foodservice industry and legislators.

As soon as the COVID-19 pandemic reached the U.S., Vidant Medical Center in eastern North Carolina began to prepare for the potential of overcrowding, supply chain interruptions, and overwhelming strain on the staff. To support the patients and staff, Vidant’s dining services team jumped in to adapt their operations.

“Our customer base dropped dramatically almost overnight,” said Troy Sheppard, Food & Nutrition Service Line Administrator and Client Executive with Sodexo, which provides dining operations for Vidant Health system. Increased staffing demands created further challenges, as self-serve food lines were converted to staffed stations and heightened sanitation protocols required more labor time. A shifted focus on quick service dining changed the norm even further.

Changing operations and supporting the staff in a pandemic didn’t mean the Sodexo team would abandon their sustainability commitments. On the contrary, Sodexo has continued rolling out its food waste prevention platform, WasteWatch powered by Leanpath (WWxLP), globally, despite the pandemic. WWxLP has deployed at 732 Sodexo sites, including 188 healthcare sites in the US, nearly all since the onset of COVID-19. More than 1,200 Sodexo kitchens globally are currently in the program.