Food Waste Reduction Is Imperative. This Is How We Do It.
Before we dive into our proprietary waste reduction solution, we must set the stage and address some concerning facts about food waste:
- 870 million people go hungry everyday
- 930 million tonnes of food are wasted globally every year — 26 % of it comes from the food service industry.
- 58 % of food produced in Canada is lost or wasted each year, that’s almost $ 50 billion worth.
We could keep going.
It is clear that food waste is a significant problem in our society.
Given our corporate footprint and food purchasing reach, fighting the global crises of climate change and hunger must be part of our mission. At Sodexo, we are committed to achieving our Better Tomorrow 2025 goals of fighting hunger and malnutrition, reducing carbon emissions, and championing sustainable resource usage.
Since more than half our global business is linked to food and serving consumers every day, we have set ambitious goals to reduce food waste in all our operations. We are committed to cutting half of food loss and waste from our operations by 2025.
Here’s one of our solutions.
Watching our Waste with WasteWatch
We began developing our food waste prevention program, WasteWatch powered by Leanpath over 10 years ago.
WasteWatch is Sodexo’s global data-driven food waste preventions program to prevent and reduce food waste. The technology, powered by our software partner Leanpath, uses an automated waste tracking and analytics platform to measure food waste performance with a goal of preventing it before it happens. The program uses a smart scale and tablet solution to feed near real-time data to online dashboards where our managers and chefs can understand what food is being wasted, why and where.
WasteWatch data helps make the invisible visible. It helps to identify opportunities for efficiency, informs fine-tuning of menus and operating procedures, and makes tracking progress and results easy.
Since its launch, WasteWatch has helped us reduce food waste at participating sites globally by 50%.
Patrick Sochnikoff, Global VP, Corporate Responsibility, Sodexo, says:
Tracking wasted food gives us data, and when we have data, we can make lasting changes to address the issue. These changes include how we manage our kitchens and the way we plan menus, and they also include raising awareness and letting our consumers know what they are wasting too. Each small change makes a difference, and data is how we’ll drive improvement.
Since starting our WasteWatch powered by Leanpath program in 2018 in Canada, we have saved 286,390 meals from becoming food waste, and have avoided 1,076 metric tons of CO2 emissions.
Creating Positive Purchasing Habits
At a corporate office in Montreal, WasteWatch has had a significant impact on the team, but also on the consumers.
"WasteWatch has given me a database of what we are wasting, helping me impact the team," says executive chef, Joyce Brito. "With the data reporting, I can show our client where we can reduce or increase some items, making sure we are conscious of the consumers. I can build my menu based on what is being wasted."
It has also helped her communicate with the consumers on site.
"At this location, we installed the public console. It shows the monthly data for the amount of waste generated by the consumers. I think it will be helpful for then to understand their impact."
For us, fighting food waste is a day-to-day effort. Thanks to the WasteWatch program and its intelligent waste-measurement technology, our teams can rapidly and easily capture food waste data and drive cultural and behavioural changes to cut food waste generated in the kitchen as well as that left on our consumers’ plates.
Learn more about our innovative solutions for resource management.
During the last week of October, we run our annual WasteLess Week campaign. During that week, we empower our employees and consumers to reduce waste and drive awareness of sustainable practices.