Marist Dining weighs waste with LeanPath

Marist Dining by Sodexo began its weigh-the-waste journey when it first partnered with LeanPath in 2010.

LeanPath is a preventative food waste program that measures waste, analyzes data, optimizes results, and empowers workers. Tracking food waste allows kitchens to adopt reductions in food purchasing costs by pinpointing high waste, high-cost items.

Marist Dining has significantly increased use of LeanPath in the past year, thus increasing operational efficiencies and employee engagement.

The upsurge in LeanPath waste management can be traced back to a successful training facilitated during the annual employee ‘Welcome Back’ meeting by Executive Chef Jon Bohn and Production Manager Burcu Schofield.

“At Marist Dining, we align Sodexo’s Better Tomorrow initiative with Marist College’s strategic plan. We are committed to avoiding landfills by working with Food Network Recovery and mastering LeanPath,” said Bohn.

The training was developed a year prior by Marist Dining Sustainability Intern Phoebe Smith.

Smith analyzed staff behavior as it related to discarding waste and developed a strategic plan to improve waste tracking. This included reducing the amount of trash cans located in the prep areas of the main kitchen and ensuring that every employee knew how to use the LeanPath system.

“As Marist Dining’s sustainability intern, I learned the system, updated the interface and helped train over 150 employees,” said Smith. “Extensive training continues to take place in order to reach our goal of 100% tracked waste. As a student, I believe LeanPath is a great way for cooks to understand that the value of their work extends past making a great lasagna. The dining experience is even better when students know that Marist Dining is actively making food waste reduction efforts.”

According to World Wild Life, food waste is the third largest contributor to climate change. When food enters landfills, it emits methane - a greenhouse gas that is 4x as potent as carbon dioxide. Not only does food waste accelerate climate change, but it also wastes water, labor, money and oil. Trashing one egg wastes 55 gallons of water.

Since the semester began, Marist Dining has tracked 137 pounds of waste - more than half which was donated to local food recovery efforts.