Food Waste Intelligence

The United States Tour Operators Association has awarded Uniworld Boutique River Cruise’s Sustainability Officer Julie Higgins its Future Lights Award for contributions to sustainability in the tourism industry. 

The organization highlighted Higgins’s “industry-leading efforts to reduce food waste” with Leanpath as her key achievement this year. As the association explained:

This post is part of a new series looking at ideas for repurposing commonly overproduced menu items.

At Leanpath, we see a lot of potato waste across many of the foodservice organizations we work with. One of our largest customers recently recorded over 21,000kg of potato waste in one year. In many cases, food waste from low cost ingredients like potatoes and other starches or vegetables is considered low priority, but when labor and disposal fees are considered, there is a huge opportunity to cut costs and reduce environmental impact by giving more consideration to these ingredients. 

Repurposing leftover mashed potatoes is a great way to reduce food waste and get creative with your kitchen creations. So long as the mashed potato has been held to a safe temperature and environment, this humble food item can be the catalyst for a broad range of delicious, low waste menu creations. Here are some top ways a  professional kitchen can repurpose leftover mashed potatoes.

Leanpath CEO and Co-Founder Andrew Shakman sat down with Sharon Cittone for her FoodTech Junkies podcast, taking a dive into Leanpath's history, the state of the food waste movement and what Andrew sees as the road ahead.

"We began on a journey to fight food waste in 2004, not knowing what that journey was going to look like and frankly how exciting it would be to see an entire movement build around that."

Get a glimpse into the past and future of the food waste movement in foodservice in this 30-minute podcast here.

At Leanpath we have long recognized the connection between food waste and climate change.  That critical connection is foundational to our mission of making food waste prevention and measurement everyday practice in the world’s kitchens. 

The food waste-climate connection has been amplified by many organizations.  For example, the UNFAO famouslynoted years ago that if ranked as a country, food waste would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions behind the U.S. and China. The World Wildlife Fund recentlyfound that global food wastage accounts for up to 10% of global emissions. And the Project Drawdown teamcited food waste reduction as one of the top solutions to climate change.

In addition, UK-basedWRAP highlighted a critical point in a recent report (Food Loss and Waste: From Commitments to Action) that bears repeating: We cannot achieve net zero emissions without tackling food loss and waste. 

We are all seeing signs of emissions-driven climate change around the world in recent weeks in the form of record temperatures, drought, fires, and floods, and we think it is important to highlight stories reflecting those signals.

It’s a problem Leanpath has seen play out in foodservice kitchens for years. A kitchen decides to track and reduce food waste, but its frontline workers are unengaged because they fear they’ll be punished for acknowledging that food waste occurs.

In a recent Leanpath webinar, Engage & Empower Culinary Teams to Prevent Food Waste, Executive Chef Robb White and Director of Business Development Tom Mansel, discussed how to address that problem directly, as well as other tips for engaging your teams.

Watch the webinar excerpt above for recommendations on making food waste a safe topic or keep reading for a summary of the topic. And check out the full webinar here to learn more insights.