McDonald's - Pacific Sierra Region
As part of a waste reduction initiative within McDonald’s Pacific Sierra Region, the owners and franchise partners of 24 restaurants in Alameda County made recycling and composting of food scraps and food-soiled paper a priority at their businesses. Nine of those restaurants are being recognized for their outstanding efforts to add recycling and composting collection to not only back of the house operations, but for customers as well. New recycling program rollouts included bi-lingual trainings, and rewards for staff participation.
StopWaste At Work
StopWaste is a public agency that provides free assistance to Alameda County businesses and institutions. We can help your organization lower operating costs, increase efficiency and protect the environment through recycling, waste prevention and resource efficiency improvements. We offer:
EPA’s Toolkit for Reducing Wasted Food and Packaging
EPA's Toolkit for Reducing Wasted Food and Packaging: A guide for Food Services and Restaurants. Provides an overview of wasted food and packaging, a food recovery hierarchy, and a tutorial for EPA's Tool to Track Wasted Food and Packaging.
Tips for Reducing Wasted Food
We often do not realize how much food we waste at our businesses. Check out our list of common strategies to figure out where wasted food happens at your business and how to avoid it.
Strategies
This list identifies common strategies any business can use to reduce wasted food. Choose strategies based on the opportunities that exist at your facility. Tracking wasted food is always the first step.
Reduce Wasted Food
Food service establishments generate a significant amount of wasted food costing the commercial food service industry roughly $100 billion annually. Between 4 and 10 percent of food purchased by food service operators the U.S. is thrown away before ever reaching a customer’s plate! All businesses can benefit from reducing wasted food; saving money by reducing not only disposal costs but also over-purchasing, labor, and energy costs. Additionally, food service establishments can receive tax benefits from donating wholesome, edible food to food banks or food rescue organizations.
Food Waste Prevention Grant Application
Monetary Awards for Businesses, Institutions and Nonprofits in Alameda County that have projects relating to Food Waste Prevention and Food Recovery.
Cal Dining: Food Waste Prevention
UC Berkeley’s foodservice provider Cal Dining measures types and amounts of pre-consumer food waste with specialized tracking equipment, then uses the findings to modify purchasing and food prep routines. Cal Dining has reduced food waste by 19%, equivalent to 27 tons/year, or $98,402/year in reduced food costs.
Smart Kitchen Initiative
Why Measure Food Waste?
Because you can’t manage what you don’t measure! Food service operations typically throw away 4-10% of the food they purchase before it reaches a customer’s plate, due to overproduction, expiration, spoilage and trimmings. That’s $40,000 to $100,000 worth of food for every $1 million in food purchases! Measuring pre-consumer food waste is the first step toward reducing this number.
Who Can Participate?
Food service operators with annual food purchases of $300K or more, including:
Recology Grover Environmental Products
Compost made by Recology Grover Environmental Products (RGEP) is produced at a 166-acre composting facility in the Central Valley town of Vernalis. About 40-50% of the food scraps and yard trimmings used as feedstock originate in Alameda County, including the cities of Albany, Berkeley, Emeryville, Hayward, Livermore, Oakland and the sanitary districts of Castro Valley and Oro Loma.
The Zero Net Energy Center
The Zero Net Energy Center (ZNEC) in San Leandro is a partnership of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 595 and the Northern California National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA). Completed in 2013 as a retrofit of an outdated commercial building, the 46,000-square-foot facility is the largest building in California that generates enough renewable energy on-site to meet its own electricity demand.
Pages
