How to Eliminate Food Waste in the Kitchen

From Prevention to Disposal, how to reduce food waste in the kitchen.

Have you ever stopped to think about how much food waste your facility produces? How much money you could be saving, or using towards patient meals? And what impact does all this have on the environment?

There is $31 billion of food waste in Canada’s landfills—this is 40% of the food produced in Canada (Gooch & Felfel, 2014). In 2010, Canadian hospitals would have wasted approximately $41 million worth of food—this equates to over 1000 kg of food waste produced per day by an average large Toronto hospital (Gooch & Felfel, 2014). This waste greatly impacts the bottom line of a hospital budget by driving up food cost. 97% of food waste ends up in landfills and 75% of that waste is recyclable or compostable (United States Environmental Protection Agency, 2018; Sustainable Foodservice Consulting, 2018). When this food sits in landfills, it rots and releases methane gas which is a greenhouse gas that is 25 times more potent to the environment than carbon dioxide (Environmental Commissioner of Ontario, 2012). All of this results in a 10-20% increase in the price of food paid by Canadians (Gooch & Felfel, 2014). This is where a large amount of food is wasted, it skews the perception of demand when in reality the change in demand is actually very little (Gooch & Felfel, 2014). This higher demand increases the need for food production and processing (at a manufacturing level), and all the labour, space, and resources that go along with it (Gooch & Felfel, 2014). With regards to foodservice, 50-70% of the weight of an operation’s garbage consists of compostable food items (Sustainable Foodservice Consulting, 2018). 

The European Union Waste Directive, legislated by the European Commission (2016), can be used to manage waste in your foodservice institution in the most sustainable way. The directive is as follows:

• Prevention
• Preparing for Reuse
• Recycling (including composition)
• Other Recovery (including energy recovery)
• Disposal

Prevention

Prevention is the first, and biggest, step in reducing food waste. There are so many steps to take in preventing waste from happening in the first place that reuse, recycling, recovery, and disposal may only play a very small role in your foodservice facility. It all starts with evaluating your inventory, purchases, and waste audits. 

Inventory

Before we can even think about making purchase orders, we need to look at our current inventory. How does it align with our current menu cycle? Accurate and up-to-date inventory counts are paramount in preventing waste as it directly relates to how much you order and when (Gregoire, 2013). It is a good indicator of where your facility may be incurring the most waste.

General Purchasing Guidelines

Ensure you are making informed purchasing decisions by finding suppliers who are committed to operating in a sanitary manner. This is achieved by buying from suppliers who are reliable, get their products from an approved source, and who are inspected regularly. Make certain that they have employees who are trained in sanitation, food safety, and personal hygiene. Check the supplier’s delivery trucks to confirm that they are using protective, leak-proof, sturdy, and properly refrigerated vehicles. Pick a supplier who will work with you to schedule a good time to make deliveries so that products are not being delivered during busy times and that only one shipment is being received at a time. Verify that suppliers cooperate with your employees who are inspecting the products delivered and allow you to inspect their delivery trucks and production facilities for any sign of contamination. (Krewen, 2012).

General Receiving Guidelines 

Your operation’s receiving protocols are a part of good practices in waste management. These protocols should include well-trained receiving employees, proper equipment available (dollies, carts, thermometers, etc.), and that all expiration, use-by dates, and temperatures are inspected on products and moved into proper storage right away. Remember that unacceptable goods should be rejected (due to discolouration on meats, abnormal odours, damaged packaging, large ice crystals on foods, mould, and signs of infestation). Following that, the goods received should be cross referenced with the invoice to ensure that you’ve received what you’re being charged. (Krewen, 2012).

Following these purchasing and receiving guidelines will prevent you from having to throw out any rotten, expired, or contaminated products which will not only save your facility from excess waste production, but money as well.

Production Demand

Since both overproduction and underproduction can affect waste, they both contribute directly to the food cost in your facility. Therefore, forecasting your production demands must be accurately based on relevant past data (occupancy rate, past menus and recipes, and resident and patient surveys as they relate to food), patterns of behaviour (including weather and special events), availability of products (seasonal/imported produce, expiration date, and shelf life of dry goods), and relevant new data (new patients or residents with chronic diseases and/or texture modified diets) (Gregoire, 2013).

In order for forecasting to be successful, employees must follow a production schedule (including preparation time, quantity, approved substitutions, etc.), participate in production meetings and monitoring (including feedback and recording data), use standardized recipes, and use designated portion sizes (Gregoire, 2013).

Once we have all that taken care of, we need to go in to our kitchens and look at preventing waste in the preparation stages. This first starts with reviewing trimming procedures with your staff on a regular basis by ensuring that fruits and vegetables are being cored and peeled properly and that as little meat as possible is being trimmed off when cutting it from the fat and bone (Gordon Food Services, 2017). A helpful resource is to start a waste log that will track the weight of products before and after trimming—this has been shown to lower food costs by 15% (Gordon Food Services, 2017). You can use this log to track over and underproduction as well. Regularly check that staff are clearly labeling and dating foods in dry storage, coolers, and freezers to prevent spoilage and ensure that FIFO (first in, first out) is being practiced (Krewen, 2012). Also verify that food is being stored properly and at the right temperatures (Krewen, 2012). Document any waste that occurs to accurately compare the waste log to previous months and track the progression of the new implementation (Gordon Food Services, 2017). You can also track your institution’s success with others in the industry by looking at benchmarking standards (Gordon Food Services, 2017). By buying value-added foods like pre-marinated, pre-seasoned, pre-breaded, and pre-cooked, you can reduce overproduction costs because you’ll always have the correct amount needed (Gordon Food Services, 2017). 

Preparing for Reuse

Once you have procedures established to reduce waste and everyone is adhering to these methods, here are some ideas as to what to do with the legitimate food scraps:

• Old bread crusts and cracker crumbs can be used to make breadcrumbs and toppings for casseroles
• Vegetable peels and stalks, celery leaves, and poultry, pork, and beef bones can be used to make soup stocks
• Leftover meat can be used for tacos, spaghetti sauce, casseroles, and meat pies
• Juices from canned fruit can be used to make ice cubes for fruit punch, glazes for meat, marinades, salad dressings, and popsicles; Fruit zest from fruit peels (like lemon, orange, or lime) can be used to make marinades, sauces, frostings, and juice
• Spotty and brown bananas can be made into banana bread

(Striepe, 2018).

Recycling and Composition

Any organic material that is inedible can be composted, including dried coffee grounds, and used as fertilizer for the facility’s gardens. Alternatively, composted waste can be sold to landscaping companies and some institutions have even chosen to partner with worm farms to divert their organic waste as well. (Roy, 2017).

To implement a composting program at your institution, you need to first figure out if and where your organic materials have a composting or anaerobic digestion facility to go to, as some areas may not have the infrastructure to do so. Then you need to determine collection schedules, how often they’ll come, and how often you’ll need them to come. The final step before implementation would be to ensure employees are educated on the program and to set up appropriate signage around the compost bins. After implementation, you can look into accessing compost produced at your processing facility and using it as fertilizer, as mentioned earlier. (Compost Council of Canada, 2016). For more information on this program, visit http://www.compost.org/

Other Recovery

Many facilities around Canada have invested in equipment that turns unusable oil products and kitchen grease into biofuel that can be used to power garden and farm equipment and even shuttle buses. These oil products and grease can also be picked up by companies and taken to a plant to turn them into biofuel. Facilities have also invested in dehydrator systems that extract water from organic material. This dehydrated material is then sent to farms for decomposition and fertilizer. Some institutions are also participating in pilot projects that are looking into transforming their food waste into bio plastics. (Roy, 2017).

Disposal

Finally, if none of the previous methods are suitable for your waste, it can now be thrown away as garbage.

There are many steps during the food production process where waste can be prevented—starting with just looking around your storage area, before you even place a purchase order. Waste can continue to be eliminated through receiving protocols, adhering to forecasting models, and tracking waste audits. Reuse, recycling, and recovery are other great options for organic waste, saving disposal as a last and final resort. The amount of money you’ll be saving at your facility—and not to mention the positive effects on the environment—will be insurmountable.