Excess food is a part of the restaurant business.  I believe that reducing surplus food is the ideal, but that requires sacrificing either sales (only order a set amount for each day) or convenience (prepare food to order).  Sometimes those sacrifices just aren’t feasible.
It’s what restaurants do with the excess that interests me. They have three main choices: throw it away, […]

In maintaining this site, I occasionally hear about some clever food recovery schemes. Recently, Bill Spier wrote in and told me about his A Second Helping operation that collects unused groceries from beach rentals.
What a perfect idea! When you’ve rented a vacation condo and bought a week’s worth of groceries, there’s inevitably some excess food. I know this option […]

As I mentioned before, I’m a member of the NC Food Diversion Task Force. It’s a new group (we’re just working on our mission statement) with members from all walks of life. We met today for the third time at the pastoral RAFI (Rural Advancement Foundation International) building.
What jumped out at me during today’s meeting […]

Today, I learned a little more about a new area for me—avoiding food waste at concerts and sporting events. I was excited to learn more about this area from Syd Mandelbaum of Rock and Wrap It Up! (their exclamation point, not mine).
The New York non-profit launched in 1991, but started operating nationally in 1993 when it got The Black Crowes […]

We recently discussed military food waste, where I noted that more than a third of MREs are wasted. I learned this during my visit to the US Soldier Systems Center in Natick, Mass.
From what I was told, most of the waste comes not from half-eaten items so much as untouched ones. Soldiers “field strip” their […]

In a shocking bit of front-page food waste news, Washington Post reported today that FEMA wasted $43 million of prepared food last summer because it ran out of warehouse space. Truckloads of MRE-like meals–6 million of them–spoiled as they sat outside in the Alabama heat. 
This situation makes an easy meal for politicians playing the public watchdog role. Enter […]

While I was visiting my family in Boston recently, we ate at a local chain called Not Your Average Joe’s. It seems like the kind of restaurant we’ll see more of in future, serving a diverse menu of “creative casual cuisine” (whatever that means). It’s like a more local, higher-end Chili’s.
Our table of five adults and two three-year-olds […]

This is the last of two updates before I get back to posting about my experiences working in a grocery store produce section (”The Produce Project”).
On Wednesday, we talked about supermarkets throwing away rotisserie chickens after five hours. I asked Dr. Angela Fraser, a food safety expert at N.C. State University about this topic and she e-mailed that North Carolina […]

While buying a rotisserie chicken during a recent 9 p.m. shopping run, I faced a dilemma.   
On my previous trip to the store, the chickens were sold out because they were on sale. But, the clerk told me, on all other days, you can get discounted birds if they’ve sat for four hours. Knowing I was going to […]

A friend in London just sent me this link to a column in The Observer of London on sell-by dates. It seems we’re not the only ones chucking plenty of good food, nor am I the only one badgering folks about it. It’s interesting to read about parallel food waste awareness across the pond. Plus you get […]