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Upcoming Events
Jan 16, 2009
1pm EST
Practice Greenhealth
webinar "Food Services Waste Prevention and Composting" will feature LeanPath CEO Andrew Shakman.
Mar 6th, 2009
Philadelphia / NJ
What is "Source Reduction?"
Source reduction is the process of avoiding, minimizing, or preventing food waste. By not creating the waste, there is no need to discard it, recycle it, compost it, or otherwise divert it. Source reduction is the most important and first step on the "Waste Management Hierarchy" because it saves the most money and delivers the greatest environmental benefits.
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LeanPath Customer Profile: Executive Chef Eric Eisenberg
Swedish Medical Center - Seattle, Washington
Swedish Medical Center is a 697-bed hospital serving the greater Seattle-area and was one the first hospitals to launch hotel-style room service. Swedish uses ValuWaste automated food waste tracking tools from LeanPath to track all kitchen food waste (overproduction, expiration, spoilage, etc.) every day.
“ValuWaste is a great tool. It is simple to understand, unobtrusive and easy to operate” states Chef Eric. At first he was skeptical; he thought it would be cumbersome to run the program – but soon discovered that it was not. “I am a big fan now.”
He also makes another point that is particularly pertinent in this current economic climate: “If you consider how expensive food has become, the fact that [food cost] has gone down at all is amazing.” He also believes that the Tracker is a great visual cue for all employees that control use of inventory. “When the staff is put in a position to look at what they are wasting they are obliged to respond by wasting less.”
Read more about Chef Eisenberg and his success with ValuWaste.
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How to Waste Less Soup
Many operators are surprised to learn that soup and chili are major waste items. Take these steps to reduce soup waste:
Make sure you're batch cooking: If cooks are preparing one large batch each morning, retrain to batch cook in small quantities based on demand. You’ll throw away less, and have fresher product.
Noodle Now or Noodle Later? For soups with noodles or rice, add starches during the final warming, not during production. Delay garnishing chili with cheese. Delayed finishing improves product quality and you may have more flexibility to safely repurpose the base and the noodles than if they were previously combined.
Watch the Skies: Weather affects soup sales - make sure cooks are paying attention to the weather and adjusting production accordingly.
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Always Know the Top 10 Foods You Waste
Knowing your "Top 10" most wasted foods is the first step toward reducing food waste and saving money. Remember, we manage the things we measure! Once you have this data, set a goal to the reduce the #1 item by 50%. Work on it for 2-3 weeks and track progress. Once you succeed, set a new goal for item #2 while continuing to monitor changes in the amount of waste for item #1. You can measure this data with LeanPath waste tracking tools or manually on paper.
Learn more about how food waste tracking can help you cut costs in the immediate future! Contact us for more information or visit www.leanpath.com.
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LeanPath, Inc.
10180 SW Nimbus Ave. Suite J1, Portland, OR 97223
(877) 620-6512
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