|
Chef Ralph Geslao has been leading a pre-consumer
food waste tracking effort at Lankenau Hospital outside
Philadelphia since late 2005
using LeanPath’s ValuWaste system.
Background:
Chef Ralph worked at
Lankenau earlier in his career before leaving to run
his own restaurant for 12 years. He returned to
Lankenau 18 years ago as Chef. Chef Ralph is an active
cyclist, participating in many charity rides and
recently completing a benefit ride to Millersville, PA
to benefit multiple sclerosis.
It “should
be mandatory for all managers to pay attention to waste"
What he thinks of ValuWaste:
Chef Ralph’s overall impression of his experience over
the last four years:
"I like it a lot.”
At the Beginning:
When Chef Ralph first started with ValuWaste he “didn’t
know what to expect.” The biggest initial impact that
it had on he and his crew was the “volume of waste and
[seeing] how it adds up from area to area” throughout
the operation. ValuWaste showed the total amount of
food waste to his team “in a way that they [hadn’t] seen
before.”
Food Cost Impact:
While using the ValuWaste program Ralph and his team
have been able to reduce food cost measurably.
The best part of using ValuWaste:
“Keeping employees aware of the items they throw away
and the cost” associated with those items.
Biggest surprises:
One of the things that surprised Ralph the most was “the
amount of bread ends we were just throwing away”. Now
he reports they “have fresh croutons and vegetable stock
daily” by using previously unused items. They achieve
this by collecting the bread ends which are diced and
stored for later use and by keeping a container by the
ValuWaste Tracker scale for all vegetable trim that can
be made into stock.
Ralph’s advice for new managers?
It “should be mandatory for all supervisors and managers
to [pay attention to waste] a daily basis –not just the
back of the house chef."
|
