In kindergarten, I starred in a play that haunted me for years and years. My role was to explain the amount of food waste produced by America every year.
I wonder how it is today, but at the time it was on the order of half a billion tons a year.
Spent the rest of my childhood trying to be hyper-conscientious about the waste I produced.
Got to high school, got a job at a local restaurant, eventually moved onto large-scale corporate catering, and then went to live and work on a farm.
As I moved up the scale of food production I only saw more and more waste. It was sickening but at the same time completely understandable when you realize that there are diminishing returns. The larger your business is, the more waste becomes "not worth our time".
I just can't feel bad about throwing away half a pizza here and there anymore.
After I left the farm I took one more job in food service before moving to tech, and that was at a small-scale startup that produces healthy, fresh, TV dinner style foodstuff, and distributes them at retail locations.
I was blown away at how efficient the whole process was. One of the chief philosophies of my boss was conservation. With a business model that revolved around maintaining a supply of each meal reflective of its demand, and making dishes that could be built upon common base ingredients, we were able to exactly calculate the amount of food we needed to make each day. If for some reason there was a piece or two of chicken left, or some rice, an employee would just take it home. I just wish every place could be that committed to not wasting food, by creating a business model that incentivizes such behavior with a better profit margin.
Part of the issue with scale is that this extra profit margin becomes more and more marginal. Supporting local farms, co-ops, and cooks is probably the best thing we can do to enable less food waste across the industry.
I wonder how it is today, but at the time it was on the order of half a billion tons a year.
Spent the rest of my childhood trying to be hyper-conscientious about the waste I produced.
Got to high school, got a job at a local restaurant, eventually moved onto large-scale corporate catering, and then went to live and work on a farm.
As I moved up the scale of food production I only saw more and more waste. It was sickening but at the same time completely understandable when you realize that there are diminishing returns. The larger your business is, the more waste becomes "not worth our time".
I just can't feel bad about throwing away half a pizza here and there anymore.
After I left the farm I took one more job in food service before moving to tech, and that was at a small-scale startup that produces healthy, fresh, TV dinner style foodstuff, and distributes them at retail locations.
I was blown away at how efficient the whole process was. One of the chief philosophies of my boss was conservation. With a business model that revolved around maintaining a supply of each meal reflective of its demand, and making dishes that could be built upon common base ingredients, we were able to exactly calculate the amount of food we needed to make each day. If for some reason there was a piece or two of chicken left, or some rice, an employee would just take it home. I just wish every place could be that committed to not wasting food, by creating a business model that incentivizes such behavior with a better profit margin.
Part of the issue with scale is that this extra profit margin becomes more and more marginal. Supporting local farms, co-ops, and cooks is probably the best thing we can do to enable less food waste across the industry.