Talking Trash

The closing of a restaurant and the warming of the planet might seem unrelated but a common culprit might contribute to both: food waste.

An unused supply of ingredients or an under-ordered menu item comes at a cost—and not just for the restaurant. When unsold and expired food ends up in a landfill, it rots and releases methane, a gas more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide. Fortunately, awareness of food waste in the restaurant industry continues to increase and several Indiana organizations are providing solutions to combat it.

“Consumer-facing businesses, which includes the restaurant and hospitality industry, account for 40 percent of the 63 million tons of food waste generated in the U.S. each year,” says Emily Jackson, program manager for the Indiana Recycling Coalition and a stakeholder in the Indiana Food Scrap Initiative (IFSI). “The Indiana Food Scrap Initiative was formed in 2015 as our state’s response to the food waste challenge. For two years, we dove deep into educating ourselves about Indiana’s unique food waste landscape and the most effective and feasible solutions. Now we are an educated network moving into action in three arenas of food waste solutions: source reduction, food rescue and food waste composting.”

Stopping Waste at the Source

Ivy Tech Community College has been a partner with IFSI for two years. Each culinary class is educated about waste reduction. Each classroom is equipped with a compost bin. Ivy Tech’s association with IFSI has allowed the school to expand the types and amounts of acceptable substances in the bins. However, a key point that must be conveyed to students is stopping food waste at the source, says Alex Spicer, chef educator and assistant director of purchasing.

“There is a razor-thin margin for success in the restaurant industry,” Spicer says. “The amount of food that is never used, due to becoming a hazard from going bad or being too ugly to sell, comes to $218 billion each year. Billions of dollars’ worth of food is wasted by being carelessly thrown away in restaurants. Today it’s so easy for chefs to order food—they can get anything from anywhere. We need to be humbler and start using 100 percent of food that is ordered.”

Restaurants and hospitality groups can address food waste by adopting an intentional attitude before dishes are even put on a menu. One option is conducting a waste audit by using a commercial tracking system like Leanpath or Winnow as well as asking servers to report amounts of food left on plates. Food inventories can be monitored for quantities nearing expiration dates or ingredients that are underutilized. Seasonal novelty dishes that often go unordered, such as St. Patrick’s Day corned beef and cabbage, can be limited. Most importantly, food scraps can be used in innovative ways.

Rethink Ingredient Use

“We cross-utilize ingredients in as many dishes as possible to make sure we do not have excess,” says Jessie Harden, co-founder of the Garden Table. “If we do have any excess, those ingredients are utilized in our rotating quiches, burritos, soups and specials. Our citrus zest, which is used on many different dishes, is made from the peels discarded when we juice. Last spring we used the beet pulp from cold-pressed juice to make a beet burger.”

Tyler Herald, executive chef at Patachou, Inc., adds, “Patachou is a very sustainable company. We are proactive and try to make the most of every ingredient we have—even the water in the table carafes is used to water the plants. As a chef, I use things we might not serve, such as all the parts of a chicken to make stock.”

Rescue to Fight Hunger

Donating or repurposing unused food is another way to fight food waste, but it can be a tricky process due to what can be accepted. Patachou, Inc., includes 13 restaurants plus the Patachou Foundation, which supplies after-school meals for children. If Herald finds he has a surplus, he can contact one of those establishments to see if they have a use for it. Ivy Tech’s Culinary Program donates to organizations such as Gleaners Food Bank, Wheeler Mission and various women’s shelters. Many area caterers and event centers donate to Second Helpings, which has a 22-year history of fighting hunger and training individuals for food service careers. Each day they distribute rescued food to more than 90 Indiana social service organizations.

“Food safety is our concern,” says Nora Spitznogle, senior program director of Second Helpings. “A lot of restaurant food is cooked to order and if it goes out on a plate or has been on a buffet table, we can’t take it. We can take prepared food that has never been served. Sometimes we repurpose it by adding protein and other vegetables.”

Besides the economic considerations and the fact that food waste is a contributing factor of global warming is the irony that one in seven Hoosiers struggles with hunger. It is heartening to know that strides are being made due to increasing awareness of this misuse of resources. It’s up to each establishment within our communities to embrace the practices that organizations like IFSI endorse.

Food waste generated by restaurants and processing plants can be the inspiration for profit. Within the United States and internationally, start-up companies are using materials that previously would have been headed to landfills. Entocycle, based in London, raises black soldier flies on discarded brewery and coffee waste. The flies are used to replace protein in animal feed. Protein-packed chips made from oil-excreted sunflower seeds are the brainchild of Palo Alto, California, start-up Planetarians. Closer to home, Chicago’s Real Good Stuff Co. uses fruit and vegetable pulp to produce dog treats and popsicles.

“There are countless success stories and the field is growing. IFSI believes that any movement is a step forward for our state. We need to employ all solutions if we are going to move the needle on eliminating food waste in Indiana—and each community has their own infrastructure, including human capital, that can be mobilized to make Indiana a leader in this arena,” says Jackson. 

FOOD RESCUE
 

Second Helpings
SecondHelpings.org

Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana
Gleaners.org

Society of St. Andrew
EndHunger.org

COMPOSTING, LIVESTOCK FEED, ANAEROBIC DIGESTION
 

GreenCycle of Indiana
GreenCycleIndy.com

Midwest Dairy
MidwestDairy.com

101 Inc.
101-Inc.com

Purdue University
purdue.edu/hla/sites/cea