Food Waste Intelligence

Food waste: for some kitchens, it’s considered a four-letter word. It’s a topic that people avoid talking about, even if it means ignoring an elephant in the room. For other operations, food waste represents an opportunity for them to do better, save money and help the environment.

St. Norbert College, in De Pere, Wisconsin, serves about 2,200 students out of one main kitchen on two floors in its newly renovated Ruth's Marketplace dining hall. With a goal to be a zero waste dining program, they had already transitioned to “trayless” dining, started a composting program, and purchased a waste pulping machine. However, they were still experiencing a lot of waste and had a hard time controlling ever-rising food costs.

We’ve shared with our readers that “food waste management” is one of the top 10 culinary trends for 2015 according to the National Restaurant Association (NRA) report, but as a category this is a pretty broad topic. So what do we expect to see people doing differently in 2015 as it relates to food waste management? In this month's focus article, I delve deeper into four specific trends that we are already seeing emerge across the industry, and which I believe will gain steam throughout the year.

Canadians represent about 0.5% of the world’s population, produce about 1.5% of the food in the world, and purchase about 0.6% of the total food produced throughout the world. Unfortunately, they also wasted over 6 million tonnes* of food in 2009, equating to roughly 183kg per person, according to Human Activity and the Environment: Annual Statistics 2009.

For many of us, January is a time for New Year’s resolutions, both personally and professionally. After a few weeks in holiday mode, we all return to the office mentally recharged and ready to tackle the year ahead. It’s the perfect time to review your priorities and goals for the year. So I challenge our readers: have you created a food waste reduction goal for 2015? If so, what is the specific target you want to reach?