Food Waste Intelligence

In five months using Leanpath, New Seasons Market's Central Kitchen has prevented over 46 thousand pounds of food from being wasted, a reduction of 22 percent in its waste. High staff engagement and strong data analysis has produced many positive changes in the team, and a new level of gratification to their work.

As Leanpath's full time Executive Chef, I've trained and coached hundreds of chefs and managers on preventing food waste in their operations. When you spend this much time with frontline foodservice workers, hearing their food waste successes and horror stories, valuable trends emerge. One of the most aggravating food loss reasons I hear about all the time is equipment failure. As chefs and managers, we trust our kitchen tools, sometimes too much. Here are a few questions to ask your staff to prevent food waste due to equipment failur...

Bringing a new piece of equipment into a busy kitchen is never a decision to be taken lightly. And since food waste prevention is often a brand new part of the kitchen workflow, it’s understandable that there could be a lot of questions about what it means for your processes and team. In the last two years, I’ve visited over 120 kitchens, training them on preventing food waste with Leanpath. Here are the most common questions I get asked about introducing Leanpath equipment into foodservice kitchens.

It is very hard to read the latest UN report on climate change. Not technically challenging - it’s written in very clear, stark language - but emotionally difficult. The problems are so big, so daunting, it’s hard to keep it all in your head at once. So it’s worth remembering as we are faced again with the enormity of the problem, that the way to deal with any big challenge is to break it down into manageable pieces, and focus on those. For foodservice kitchens, the manageable piece of the climate challenge is preventing food waste.

Food waste prevention is a mission, and mission-driven companies have an easier time recruiting and retaining staff. With foodservice turnover rates at 70% and higher, giving staff a reason to see their work as bigger than themselves, bigger than one shift or daypart, is not just nice, but necessary. Food waste prevention can do that. Here are 5 ways to get your staff engaged in the mission.