In the United States, 40 percent of all food grown, produced, packaged and sold is thrown in a landfill. This food waste comes from growers, markets, restaurants, and resident homes and is predominantly leftovers, fruits, vegetables, dairy products, meat, and packaging. We are all responsible.
There are no better ambassadors to inspire us to reduce food waste than chefs. Chefs know more about how to fully utilize every leaf, root, bone, stem, and rind.
Morrison Living, who provide culinary services at Covia’s Life Plan communities, initiated a Waste Not program in early 2018 to actively curb the amount of food waste produced by their kitchens. Since then the chefs and cooks in the Spring Lake Village kitchen have become experts at reducing food waste.
What is Waste Not? “It is accounting for every item that comes into the kitchen, using the most of every item, using food before expiration dates, measuring food waste, composting and tracking our results,” says Spring Lake Village Executive Chef Ion Aguinagalde. Production Manager John MacDonald assures that all the onion and celery trimmings go into the daily simmering of fresh broth. He also makes sure all the cooks are instructed on how to carefully pare and prepare ingredients to create the least amount of waste.
Sous Chef John Child is responsible for keeping track of the weekly Waste Not tally and logging it on the computer. Daily logs are maintained by the kitchen and dining staff. “I report over-production waste, production waste (scraps), and unused or out of date inventory,” says Sous Chef John. “Everything is accounted for and evaluated.” The whole dining staff knows the drill, “how can we cut waste?”
The Spring Lake Village culinary team are always looking for new ways to reduce food waste and use more of what they have in the kitchen. The ‘Waste Not’ program has been a great opportunity to incorporate new strategies and move toward a kitchen that creates as little food waste as possible.
* A version of this article was originally published in the Spring Lake Village resident newsletter
