SAN FRANCISCO—Most organizations tackle our global food waste problem only after noticing how much food has already been wasted. BlueCart conducted a survey revealing that when restaurants switched from traditional ordering methods to online and mobile ordering via the BlueCart application, they cut their food waste by 52 percent. Since stumbling upon this information, BlueCart has made a commitment to support sustainability practices within the food industry. This commitment launches in the form of The Zero Waste Kitchen initiative, designed to share chefs’ best composting strategies and other sustainable practices, in hopes of enlightening the greater chef community and preventing food waste before it starts.
BlueCart is joining forces with food industry partners such as Food + Tech Connect, Entrepreneurial Chef Magazine, Aspire, and 7Shifts to help chefs today become better sustainability leaders of tomorrow. Throughout this two-month journey, as the purchasing practices of three chefs are tracked, BlueCart will share improvement in their individual sustainability scores. The Sustainability Score represents an aggregate performance of composting, having a food recovery program, minimizing the carbon footprint, and designing and implementing new food waste mitigation strategies. BlueCart recently discovered that chefs that operate with Just-in-Time ordering experience leaner inventories, and thus, waste less food. In addition, using BlueCart’s platform reduces the carbon footprint by eliminating paper from thousands of transactions. BlueCart’s Zero Waste Kitchen chef roster includes Jehangir Mehta, Tanya Holland, and Tim Ma.
Mehta is a former Iron Chef runner up and the Owner/Chef of Graffiti in New York City. His exotic cuisine is inspired by his native Indian and Persian heritage. Holland is no stranger to the spotlight and rightfully so. Featured on The Food Network, VH1, The Today Show, and more, Holland has made a name for herself as a master of soul food. Her mastery is evident upon dining at Brown Sugar Kitchen, located in the greater San Francisco area. Ma was a tech star: an electrical engineer with a degree from Georgia Tech, and successful in his career at Raytheon. Ma followed his heart and ended up in an externship with chef David Chang at Momofuku Ko and the rest is newly opened Kyirisan in Washington, D.C. The finale of Zero Waste Kitchen will unite the chefs with Food+Tech Connect for a live three-day Twitter Q&A beginning the week of May 8.
Zero Waste Kitchen launched March 20, 2017. Follow the conversation here: https://www.bluecart.com/zwk.html.
