Ridley Takes a Bite out of Food Waste

Two hundred thirty-six pounds. This is a number. A shocking, disturbing number. This is the amount of food waste produced by the Ridley College’s kitchens daily. This food being wasted each day could feed around 67 people. The Aramark staff and Green Tigers Council realize this issue and are looking for new ways to combat it. When I sat down with Aramark’s General Manager of Operations, Marco Kulainis, he informed me of some exciting new ways Aramark is cutting waste.

Mr. Kulainis has 25 years of experience working in private school kitchens, so it was a pleasure to sit down and understand the food waste situation at Ridley’s Great Hall firsthand. At the beginning of April, Mr. Kulaninis was approached by the Green Council, a group headed by Mr. Petiti and Mrs. Kidd, designed to make Ridley greener. According to Mr. Kulaninis, “They came to me and asked what I could do to bring down food waste at Ridley.” Mr. Kulaninis and his team at Aramark started to do some research and studied the main producers of waste.

They found that 80% of the food wasted came from the main kitchen (hot food at School House), where food is served to you. They quickly realized that this is because you cannot dictate how much food you take in this option, whereas in the salad, or alternate option bar, it is up to you. So, the self-service concept was brought forward for breakfast and dinner. This is an exciting new way that food is served in the Great Hall, where you can pick what, and how much, you eat. Excitingly, the numbers speak for themselves.

From January 9th to February 16th, when there was no self-service option, the waste numbers were as follows. Breakfast: 45 lbs wasted, dinner: 79 lbs wasted.

From February 19th to March 24th, when self-service was implemented, the numbers were as follows: Breakfast: 36 lbs wasted and dinner: 69 lbs wasted.

Interestingly, for lunch, where there was no self-service, the number actually went from 113 lbs to 128 lbs, growing a whopping 15 lbs! This self-service concept for breakfast and dinner has finished its trial stage and is going to be presented to the Green Council. If it is deemed a success, it will become a part of the Ridley kitchens in September. Along with self-service, more exciting concepts will be commencing their trial stage shortly. The biggest one is self-clearing and teaching students the importance of proper food waste and portioning. Of course, even with these substantial changes, the largest message the Green Council and Mr. Kulaninis informed me of was: “Take what you will eat, eat what you take.” We need to better understand the value of food and realize just how blessed we are to have it.