• You save money. By controlling production and wasting less food, you purchase less or redeploy dollars toward higher priorities.
• You save staff time by being more efficient and not producing items you don’t need.
• You save disposal costs by having less food waste volume and weight to haul away.
• You reduce resource demands on agricultural producers, allowing them to use less fertilizer, pesticide, herbicide and fuel.
• You reduce and avoid greenhouse gas emissions and toxicity from food waste downstream at landfills.

• Waste prevention isn’t visible or touchable. It’s hard to explain how the absence of something represents a huge victory when people generally want to see things in front of them.
• Some people don’t think they have much food waste or, if they do acknowledge it, believe they can’t do much to improve the situation. Of course, the reality is that every operation has actionable food waste and every operation has a chance to improve.
• Operators and consultants want to attack waste but they don’t have any tools in their toolkit for waste prevention. The answer is simple and easy: the key to waste prevention is daily food waste tracking.

Background

Jill Scott is the Assistant Director of Food Services at Ohio Health's Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio where she has served for four years. She previously was with Ohio State University in the Hospitality Management Program and in Campus Dining Services.

Initial Expectations

The team at Riverside has been using the LeanPath system since June 2009. When they started the program they were hopeful that it would be able to reduce their food costs and waste. "This is especially important considering the current economic climate and the continued drive to do more with less. The system has allowed us to identify some products that were in need of replacement or general system improvement around their production."

Experience with Waste Tracking

Her overall impression: "[LeanPath’s] ValuWaste is great. It helps to raise the awareness for the associates and gives them a chance to contribute ideas to improve the operation. That is an aspect that we pride ourselves in as an organization, so it fit in with our culture.” Another component that she enjoys about the LeanPath system, “It is very efficient to process the data and gain action steps so that keeps it achievable.”

“I think it is the right tool for the job. Prior to this, we were manually tracking waste which was very time consuming.” Because of the detailed reports, Jill was able to see how much food was being wasted due to expiration. “With The Joint Commission expectations on holding times, we need to utilize any remaining products or split cases quickly and safely. With an operation of our size, these items were adding up quickly.” She feels that when you look at what a wasted item costs in a week and then take the time to annualize it, you can really see the impact this has on your budget. (One of the features of ValuWaste Advantage 4 is a dashboard that shows how much food is wasted per week and what that adds up to over a full year.)

Recommendations

Her advice to managers new to the LeanPath system is to stay consistent with the program so the associates stay with it. “Make the information a part of associate meetings and recognize them for participating. We build the participation expectation into the annual evaluation review.”

Takeaways

Jill's initial goal was to reduce food cost. Was this achieved? “When we started the program in June [2009], we were over 8% unfavorable on food cost compared to our budget. We are currently 10% favorable to budget for our YTD.”

• EPA Food Waste Site

1. Track food waste to assess which breakfast meats are being wasted, when and why.
2. Review par levels:
   • Use tracking data to determine how much bacon or sausage is left regularly.
   • Back off on initial production quantities to levels that still allow for prompt guest service, without leaving large amounts of excess production.
   • Consider the flow, when is breakfast busy? For one hour? Two hours? Never very busy? Start with appropriate pars based on when you’re busy. Batch cook as much as possible. Move to cook-to-order (rather than hotel pans) toward the end of meal service, if possible.
3. Create a Re-use Review policy:
   • Pay very close attention to food safety rules and safe handling practices, including maintaining proper temperatures and times.
   • Leftover bacon? Crumble it for bacon bits on the salad bar. Re-use here allows you to reduce purchasing expensive bacon toppings. Or utilize this leftover bacon as a topping for baked/mashed potatoes and in other recipes from soups to casseroles. A great way to add flavor, value and reduce waste!
   • Leftover Sausage? Utilize the leftover as a toppings for pizzas or save for sausage gravy.

• NIH Study: 40% of US Food Wasted
• Food Scrap Composting: The Wave of the Future?
• Saving money on garbage hauling cost - through waste reduction