In one of my previous working lives I worked for a well-known pizza chain for about six months—as a waiter and delivery driver. One of my most vivid memories from that time is the volume of waste that was generated. Each night I would haul garbage bags full of unused pizza dough to the dumpster. In the hot weather it was quite a site—a huge container full of sticky, yeast-smelling dough just waiting to grow into something resembling the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
For all of those out there with restaurants, I hope you are doing a better job than that pizza chain. Something tells me, however, that food waste is still a huge problem in the restaurant industry. If you have a restaurant in your hotel, when was the last time you took a close look at what is going into your dumpsters? If you are not paying close attention to what you are throwing away, you have got a problem.
At the National Restaurant Assn. Restaurant Hotel-Motel Show, which wrapped up in Chicago last week, food waste was the focus of numerous vendors. One company out of Portland, Oregon called LeanPath introduced its ValuWaste pre-consumer waste tracking system. Another company, BioHitechAmerica, Newark, N.J., showed how its high-volume organic waste decomposition system can drastically reduce the volume of food waste sent to the landfill. Several other vendors featured technologies that dispose of kitchen grease in an environmentally friendly fashion.
Room for Improvement
There really is no excuse for so much food waste. Better food preparation planning, food donation programs, composting, as well as cutting-edge technologies can all help to reduce waste volume. There are many hotels, motels, inns and lodges that deal with food waste responsibly. Most of them participate in composting programs.
An important part of food waste minimization is education. When was the last time you met with your kitchen staff to talk about the connection between waste reduction and profitability? The environmental impact of food waste? Make kitchen waste management a priority at the next meeting of your green team. And if you don’t have a green team, form one.
The restaurant industry, with its food and packaging waste, drive-throughs that encourage engine idling, and over-sized portions, owes the environment—big time. Fortunately, efforts are being made to bring awareness of green issues to the front burner. The National Restaurant Assn. just announced formation of a new board of directors task force to take the lead on implementing the association’s recently launched environmental initiative. (Click here for the article.)
The Green Restaurant Assn. has been pushing environmental and social responsibility for a long time. It is refreshing to see the NRA formalizing its interest in these issues. Both organizations should work together to move the conversation forward.
Finally, if you have a kitchen food waste success story you would like to share, give me a call at (440) 243-2055, or send me an e-mail.
A New Founding Sponsor
Green Lodging News welcomes INNCOM International Inc., Niantic, Conn., as a Founding Sponsor. INNCOM develops and markets advanced, software-based guestroom control systems that are designed to reduce energy consumption. Its systems have been installed in more than 350,000 hotel rooms.
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Green Lodging News ‘On the Air’
Thank you to Michael Chaffin, host of the indieHotelier podcast, for interviewing me for his weekly Internet-based show. If you would like to listen to the conversation that focused on green lodging trends, click here. One of my industry friends, Tony Longhurst, who is with Boulder, Colo.-based Sustainable Hospitality, was also recently featured on Michael’s show. Be sure to check out that April 15 conversation on “The Value of Sustainability.”
As always, I can be reached at editor@greenlodgingnews.com.
