Did you know? Gwinn keeps
meticulous records of customer flow,
preferences, and portions so that they can
order just the right amount of food and reduce waste.
Local Sustainable Initiatives
Environmental
Waste Minimiza on Ac on
Steps
Trayless Dining -implemented
September 2009
Bulk condiment dispensers –
par al implementa on Gwinn
dining
Purchase bulk products over
small sizes (ex. Purchases 50#
sugar instead of 5# bags)
SCA Xpressnap – implemented winter quarter 2010
Weigh the Waste – 2009 &
2010 waste studies
Use of durables (reusable
plates, silverware, cups, mugs,
etc.)
Reusable Bags - retail
Used cooking oils for biofuels
Recycling
Compos ng
Show the Waste Minimizaon Overview to employees for
training purposes
Use sustainable cleaning solu ons and concentrates
Compostable service ware
implemented September 2010 for
all take-out food items
Meatless Mondays implemented in the dining hall at 2 en-
Environmental Focus On Our Campus
2011 Food Waste Survey – Gwinn Commons
Average food waste per person: 1.6 oz
Average guest count: 2000 people
Average pounds of food wasted per day: 200 lbs
A year in Gwinn would mean 42,000 pounds of edible food
wasted by customers.
What did you measure?
From May 2 to May 6, student workers worked behind the scenes to find out how
much food is wasted by customers in Gwinn during lunch. The first step was to
separate food waste from nonfood waste. Posters were put up to let students what
would and would not be counted as food waste. All edible food was counted.
Excluded from the weigh-in were the following: dishes, cups, napkins, peels, skins,
bones, stems, seeds, tea bags, toothpicks, condiment packets, plastic containers, straws,
stirrers, drinks, ice. Only food was measured.
What did you calculate?
We collected the food waste and measured the waste in pounds. Then, we divided
the food waste weight by the number of customers. We could then see the average
food waste per person. Figures varied over the week but on average 1.6 ounces of
food were wasted per person. This may not seem like a lot, but it all adds up. Given
that 2000 customers eat in Gwinn each day, we can use this average to estimate that
approximately __200___ pounds of food is wasted everyday in Gwinn.
Average Food Waste per
person in oz.
3
2.5
2
Dinner from
March 1-5,
2010
1.5
1
0.5
Lunch from
May 2-6, 2011
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Friday
Average
Thursday
Wednesday
Tuesday
Monday
0
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June 2011
Average food waste
per person: 1.6 oz
Why did you do this?
Average amount of
food wasted per day:
We are deeply concerned about the amount of food being wasted. So many resources,
so much time, and so much energy goes into growing, picking, transporting,
preparing, and serving the food you eat everyday and it’s a sad to see it wasted. By
many estimates between 1/3 and ½ of all food is wasted. Yesterday (May 11, 2011), the
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations released their report on
“Global Food Losses and Food Waste.” It found that “food waste at consumer level in
industrialized countries (222 million ton) is almost as high as the total net food
production in sub-Saharan Africa (230 million ton).”
What does food waste look like?
Many of you are wasting very little food. A good number of plates come back empty.
But there are a substantial number of plates full of edible food that are placed on the
conveyer belt headed to the compost bins. One bite out of an apple, half of a slice of
pizza eaten, a customized sandwich with only 2 bites eaten, hamburger buns
untouched—these are just a few examples.
A year in Gwinn would mean
42,000 pounds of edible food
wasted by customers.
Approximate weight of 3 adult
African elephants
What is Gwinn doing to prevent food waste in
production?
With each meal item, the chefs record how much food was served. When we serve that
meal item again, we check our figures to see how much was served last time and adjust
our production accordingly. As our customer count fluctuates daily we have to make
sure that we’ll still have enough food to meet demand. For example, if we serve
chicken and broccoli at the Classics station one day and prepare 200 portions but only
serve 100, we’ll record that and next time we serve that meal we’ll only make, say, 150
portions. If the leftover chicken is still good to eat (and safe according to regulations),
we may serve it in a soup the next day. That way we don’t have to throw it out.
Detailed records of the amount of food produced, served, and leftover means we
can effectively manage food waste.
How does food waste in Gwinn compare to other
places?
Did you know? At Gwinn
we have self-serve foods and
portioned foods. Our portioned sizes are
strategically chosen to help
you make the right sized
choices.
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Many of you asked how this compared to other buffet “all-you-care-to-eat” restaurants.
The service we provide here is catered to students eating on daily basis so comparing
our operation to any other buffet isn’t a fair comparison. We’ve contacted other Sodexo
dining facilities to see what they’ve found from their Weigh-the-Waste events. At
Muhlenberg College in PA, a similar amount of waste was found. (2.18 oz/person in a
trayless dining facility).
Is this amount of food waste typical for Gwinn?
Last year, food waste at dinner was measured. (March 1- 5, 2010) Last year during
dinner the average food waste was 1.83 compared to this year’s lunch average of 1.6
ounces.
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June 2011