by Laura Nguyen Oct 17, 2013 12:52 am Tags: - , Dining Commons , economy , food court , food waste , garbage , Just below , money , soartan shops , Student Union Laura Nguyen | Spartan Daily Out of sight, out of mind The food industry makes food and wastes food . Spartan Shops , which oversees all food eateries on campus , is taking steps to target and reduce food waste. “Last year, students eating in the Dining Commons left 125 pounds of food per day on their plates, which translates to 118 tons of food annually,” said Jeff Pauley, director of Dining Services. Pauley is responsible for all the food operations on campus, including retail eateries such as Just Below, the Student Union food court, On Fourth: A Novel Cafe in the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Library, the Village Market, the Dining Commons and Spartan Catering. Adam Filipp, the Spartan Shops sustainability coordinator and senior environmental studies major has started implementing waste audits in the Dining Commons to calculate food waste from leftovers scraped off of plates during lunch. In one bin, pulled from one of two caves where students place their plates after eating, Filipp sorted through to separate any fruits, vegetables, meat, grain and other remnants. With 2,700 people on meal plans, Pauley said, a few ounces of food multiplied by 7,000 visits a day, multiplied by roughly 16 weeks of a semester could be a significant amount of money spent on food purchased and energy used in making the food. Last year, the Dining Commons spent over $3,000,000 on food, Pauley stated in an email. “If we didn't have to purchase that, or didn't have to make that food, we wouldn't have to spend as much money, and the meal plans would cost less,” Pauley said. Pauley said a Platinum seven days-per-week meal plan costs $2,425 per semester and a Gold five days-per-week meal plan costs $2,100 per semester. In any situation , food waste happens because people aren't aware of their impact on it, Filipp said. Every year a new crop of students fill the eateries, but the consciousness of the food waste isn't as recognized or valued, according to Filipp. “I did it myself when I was a freshman and only ate half (of my food,)” said Lura Noyes, a liberal studies major and manager of Just Below. Students just push their plates through a window in the Dining Commons to be cleaned. It’s a very out-of-sight, out-of-mind type of thing, Filipp said. However , Cheryl Yee, a sophomore health nutrition major dining in the Student Union food court, said she is more aware of the values of food. "If you waste food, you waste your money," Yee said. "It's like throwing your money away." Waste is our enemy According to Pauley, the Dining Commons has more diners than the Student Union food court, and this is where a food waste prevention campaign will reach more students. “The biggest single source of waste we have is the food that people leave on their plates at the Dining Commons,” Pauley said. Wasting food now affects students in the future and the community because everything takes resources, Filipp said. “When you waste food, you’re technically taking food from other people, and no one is getting the benefit of it.” It’s always important to keep track of food, because often the amount needed versus the amount purchased fluctuates, said Bryman Wang, a senior business and management major and employee at Just Below. Noyes said for orders at Just Below, she always tweaks numbers to reduce waste, because people don't always order the same type of bread. Extensive data for the other food eateries on campus isn't available yet, according to Pauley. However , Noyes said she keeps reduction logs at Just Below. “Waste is our enemy, and it essentially causes higher prices , ” she said. “It’s something that we're very serious about reducing.” Pauley said it’s difficult to manage which locations waste the most food, but on a pure poundage scale, the Dining Commons wastes more mainly because of the number of visitors. A food waste reduction campaign Filipp said, will be implemented on campus with public service announcements using broad statistics and will be narrowed to more relevant, campus statistics as more data is collected this year. Food waste guidelines According to Pauley, Spartan Shops purchases franchises such as Panda Express that have specific guidelines to be followed. “We have no choice in how we run the operation,” Pauley said. For example, Panda Express entrees must be thrown out after a certain length of time by its guidelines, Pauley said. “So it’s harder to control waste in franchises because we have to play by their rules,” Pauley said. “It’s important that they protect their brand.” Of the 3,000 people who enter the Student Union food court a day, Pauley said a third of those people purchase food at Panda Express. On a consumer scale, sometimes students cannot eat foods possibly due to food allergies, or even a general dislike of the meal, Yee said. “In some situations, you have to throw it away,” she said , but she tries to offer her food to friends or offers to save the leftovers for her friends. Some businesses throw away about 40 percent of food because of sell-by dates and expiration dates, which are misunderstood, Pauley said. “Sell-by dates are just guidelines,” Noyes said. “Usually, products are still edible a week or two after depending on the product.” Donating and repurposing Filipp is working with Just Below, On Fourth: A Novel Cafe and the Village Market to organize food donations. He said they donate bread, pastries and sometimes packaged items such as chips. Emergency Housing Consortium Lifebuilders and Grace Community Center are some places that receive food donations from Spartan Shops . “I feel better knowing it goes to someone who needs it,” Noyes said. However, one of the problems with donating food, Pauley said, is that people may not want the food or need the food when it is available to donate. “There is a general perception out there that there are a ton of non-profit agencies that are looking to take any sort of food that we have left over and we've had difficulty finding places that were willing to take everything that we had,” Pauley said, such as food that has already been cooked. According to Pauley, an alternative to donating certain foods is to make use of unused products. “Most of the leftover things, the produce or meat items that we didn't end up serving in the Dining Commons, we can repurpose in another way and serve, " Pauley stated. “A good example would be taking cooked chicken that wasn't served and making chicken salad from it.” Students in the Dinning Commons “see it as one little swipe,” Wang said. “It’s already been paid for, so it’s okay.” However, if students in the Dining Commons wasted less food, the price of the meal plan could be less because of fewer food purchases, Pauley said. The campaign Filipp said he is hoping to bring back a "taste on waste" program so students can sample before receiving their food. A 5 percent reduction goal will be implemented for Spring 2014 to Fall 2014, Filipp said. “I want to help the (Dining Commons) see which items are wasted the most so they can decide whether or not to keep it,” Filipp said. Most food waste at the Dinning Commons is converted to compost at a materials recovery facility that also separates the waste, Filipp said. “Everything is thrown away together,” Noyes said. “We have a company that recycles and sorts through the stuff.” But Filipp said he stresses that it’s not okay to just recycle as an alternative to landfills. “The best thing to do is to reduce the source because you're still wasting the labor, energy and water, " Filipp said. “We always want to reduce first before recycling.”
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