Food Waste Intelligence

IKEA Canada achieved its goal of reducing food waste in its kitchens by over 30 percent within one year of implementing Leanpath. IKEA Canada’s effort is part of a larger global ambition to diminish food waste in all IKEA stores by 50 percent before the end of August 2020. More than 94,000 kilograms of food waste—equivalent to approximately 200,000 meals—has been saved since the program started in Canada.

While overall food waste fell in the UK by an average 7 percent per person between 2015 and 2018, food waste in foodservice and hospitality rose 7 percent.

The new year is a time when we reflect on lessons learned and set new goals with renewed energy and focus.  These themes seem particularly relevant as we enter 2020 – the beginning of a decade of action for hitting the UN Sustainable Development Goals – and, specifically, for hitting Target 12.3, that audacious goal of cutting global food waste in half by 2030.  A goal that, if achieved, will directly benefit many of the other 16 Sustainable Development Goals due to the central nature of food in our lives and the many linkages between food waste and global emissions, water, soil health, plastics, oceans, and biodiversity.

Salad bars are vital in high-volume operations. The salad bar concept allows the kitchen to feed a lot of guests with the least amount of labor cost. It gives guests the ability to customize their meals. It offers chefs a way to utilize and repurpose ingredients in a creative and efficient manner. There are many positives to salad bars, but standard displays and operating procedures can also lead to massive amounts of food waste.

We had a lot to be grateful for this year. Working with thousands of kitchens around the world, we empowered frontline foodservice workers to prevent over 18 million pounds of food waste, which translates to 15 million meals saved from the bin. Preventing food waste also prevents greenhouse gas emissions from that food waste. Leanpath partners kept over 58 thousand metric tonnes of C02 emissions from entering the atmosphere.