FESmag

Amelia Levin

Cooking School Nights: Track Those Scraps
August 8, 2008

I’m pretty regimented about throwing waste in their proper receptacles, but after the garden experience, I went a step further and started tracking how much waste my actions during class was generating. To keep this at a minimum, instead of blindly slicing an entire onion for the carnitas we were making, I set a mise en place dish on my trusty little scale, tared it out and began tossing the slices into the dish until it got to 5 ounces. Done.

This couldn’t be simpler, and yet, it’s not a traditional way kitchen staff work. This simple act of weighing out what exactly we needed was discussed at the FCSI super regional conference in Seattle in June, which covered waste management.

Andrew Shakman, president and CEO of LeanPath, a consulting and technology development company, focuses on helping foodservice operations reduce their overall costs by implementing weighing devices and systems in kitchens to track the amount of pre-consumer waste (excess trimmings, spoiled food, other food) the operation goes through on a daily, monthly and yearly basis. 

Kris Schroeder, RD, CD, administrative director at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, tested out the LeanPath technology by training her staff to be mindful of their cuts, use as much trimmings as possible, and weigh out how much is thrown away to get a sense of how much was being thrown out, where in the facility it was being thrown out the most, and, in order to develop incentives to encourage staff to reduce food waste. 

This is a good alternative to composting if composting is not an option. In many cases, it’s not because it usually takes a third-party vendor to convert the food scraps into compost, and in many cases, this service is not available.

On another note, there’s another way to save waste — use the extra scraps and food for menu additions or garnishes. Sometimes when I have extra chopped herbs I’ll use them for garnish, or throw them into a stew that’s working. Restaurants and foodservice operations, specifically B&I programs that feature a lot of daily and weekly specials, might be able to get more mileage out of extra food that would otherwise go to waste. 

Finally, donating food is another option. At the Seattle FCSI conference, Carl Woestwin, landscape team leader for Seattle Public Utilities, talked about how easy and inexpensive it is for operators to donate extra food to local food banks and shelters, but that many rarely do this. Look for the conference wrap-up covering these topics in the “People & Events” section of the August issue that’s coming out this week.

Here’s the other thing. When I’m in school, I may care about how much I throw away and where I throw it; however, not everyone does. Aside from those “bad apples” I talked about, many nights now that Intro’s over I see paper where it doesn’t belong, and food scraps in the garbage that should only be reserved for plastic. Maybe our entire school needs a tour of the kitchen. Maybe we need someone to threaten us with a zero.  But this is the unfortunate reality of a kitchen. All abstract conversation aside, this is who and what foodservice industry professionals, managers, designers, manufacturers and everyone, really, need to think about first and foremost. The staff doing all that throwing away, and the managers who make sure that happens properly, or who don’t. 

Stay tuned for future blog posts covering this very important issue of waste management. …

Posted by Amelia Levin on August 8, 2008 | Comments (0)