Jenna

According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 2017, U.S. restaurants were estimated to generate 22 billion to 33 billion pounds of food waste each year. Working at a restaurant for nearly 11 months, I observed this large amount of food waste every shift, in several different ways: leftover meals, incorrect/unsatisfactory meals sent back often by customers, and expired and or old food items. While leftover, incorrect, or unsatisfactory meals are unavoidable in a typical restaurant, something that is very avoidable but, as I witnessed in significant amounts, is expired and or old food items. My intentions after contemplating such waste became to reduce it, not only in my restaurant long term but perhaps in other restaurants, and make them all aware of the waste they are contributing to the environment around them such as local landfills. To begin my project, my plan was to reduce this significant food waste by first recording the amounts for 6 days. For the first 3 days, I requested my coworkers to go about their shifts as normal, tracking the amount of expired and or old food they disposed of. For the final 3 days, I asked my coworkers to then stop stocking every morning and night as they usually do, while continuing to track the disposed of food. After collecting my data, I sorted through the data logs, added them up, and entered them into several graphs. The first 3 days saw a great amount of food waste, with the total quantity of food disposed of due to being expired and or old being around 40, whereas the final 3 days saw an instant decrease in the amount of food waste, with the total quantity of food disposed of due to being expired and or old being around 10. I came to the concluding result that around 75% of the food disposed of in the first 3 days, was saved by stopping stocking. I presented this data to my management and proposed that they prevent this food waste by instead, only requiring workers to stock items once they have completely run out, rather than restocking items every morning and night. By implementing this simple, yet slightly more time-consuming rule, restaurants could be saving more food, money, and the environment.

My presentation script: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mBrQSb_eT4iyqIg-pGyU0jUizoSuc6uUHq6MHlcg094/edit