Food Waste Intelligence

In December of 2015, the U.S. joined nearly every other nation on Earth in approving the language underpinning the Paris Climate Accord – a landmark moment of global collaboration toward addressing the very real threats of climate change stemming from the build-up of greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere. Yet earlier in June, President Trump announced that the U.S. would withdraw from the Accord, thereby joining Nicaragua and Syria as the world’s only non-supportive countries. At LeanPath, we respectfully disagree with the Presid...

I often get asked, “Chef, how can I motivate my staff to track their food waste?” It’s a good question, and one that comes up often. My simple answer usually is “You can’t.” I am a firm believer that you can’t motivate, but you can inspire. Motivation vs. Inspiration is a well documented topic and one that often leads me back to heated debates I used to get into when I served as the Dean of Culinary. Culinary leaders and chefs often fail to understand a simple fact of human nature: people are intrinsically motivated beings. My student...

Food waste reduction starts with prevention—preventing the food waste from happening in the first place is the clear optimal solution from a social, environmental and economic standpoint. And the first step in prevention is measurement—understanding exactly how much food is being wasted and why, so you know where you’re starting from, can identify opportunities for improvement, and can easily track progress over time. In the ReFED Report, A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste By 20 Percent, waste tracking and analytics is listed as one ...

LeanPath Leaders Meet with FAO Representatives Earlier this month we traveled to Italy with a multidisciplinary group of graduate students from the University of Pennsylvania’s Organizational Dynamics program as part of a collaborative educational effort to address global food waste.