This article is part two of a seven-part series that focuses on how sustainability impacts students on a college campus. This series will go in-depth on topics that intersect with sustainability, such as energy use, food waste, environmental racism, recycling, compost and more.
The average American spends around $7 per day on food. Each quarter, DU roughly wastes $2,860 on food waste. This amount could feed 408 people.
Food waste is a major issue that often goes unnoticed since it piles up at an individual rate. Approximately one pound of food per person in the U.S. is wasted each day. This adds up to more than 80 billion pounds of food wasted each year, which is roughly 40% of the yearly food supply, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Why is food waste bad for the environment? Food waste continually piles up in the landfills where it emits a greenhouse gas known as methane into the atmosphere. This contributes to around 14% of the U.S.’s greenhouse gas emissions each year, according to the USDA.
Before COVID-19, Sodexo closely tracked the amount of food waste produced in Centennial Halls and Nelson dining centers. They found that on average, a student wastes around .3 pounds for each meal. The determined cost for food waste is about $1.00 per pound.
In the fall of 2019, the daily average of food waste was 303.68 pounds with a total food waste cost per meal swipe of $0.13. The total food waste for the quarter was 25,445.15 pounds. During the winter quarter of 2020, the daily average food waste was 225.60 pounds with a cost of $0.12. The total food waste was 19,113.39 pounds. The peak time for food waste is the beginning of the quarter. This may be because more students opt to eat out as the quarter goes on, or they run out of meal swipes.
Gina Vega, the wellness and sustainability manager of Sodexo, focuses on the purchasing efforts for the dining halls and ensuring that DU meets their sustainability goals by 2025. She works with a variety of accounting representatives, local farms and corporations.
Sodexo successfully met their goals in 2020 with the real food challenge. The goal was to work with local suppliers and purchase 20% local and organic products. Sodexo’s goals for 2025 are to reach 30% of purchasing local and achieve DU’s policy and goals for sustainability.
Sodexo is partnered with FreshPoint, a vendor that delivers produce to DU’s dining halls. When purchasing local, organic and fair trade produce in bulk, the main concerns are the cost and if the produce is truly organic and fair trade.
Sodexo must also allocate funding towards providing an entree and three sides, one of which must be fresh produce. The entree usually consists of a protein, which is more expensive than side dishes, especially as more corporations increase the amount of plant-based proteins.
Plant-based proteins like beans and tofu are ultimately less expensive than your typical steak dinner, but products like tempeh and Impossible Burger meat are considered an exclusive item that drives up the price. It is also more difficult to acquire these foods in bulk for Sodexo’s purposes.
Sodexo used to have a service that encouraged students to try their new food using small cups of food as taste-testers. Sodexo should continue this service to help eliminate the amount of food wasted, as students are not getting full portions of food.
Sodexo usually feeds around 2,000 students, but due to COVID-19, only 1,000 students now frequent the dining hall. This has reduced the amount of food waste in kitchens. Sodexo hopes to reduce food waste more during the spring quarter. They want to achieve this by making sure not to over or under prepare meal quantities. Sodexo will use Leanpath, a software that weighs trimmings to track how much food was wasted versus served. Presently, there are iPads in the kitchen that provide a scale for Sodexo employees to be mindful of food waste.
Tracy Williams, the general manager of Sodexo, wants to focus on the new cook-chill program that dining halls have implemented. It allows Sodexo to purchase local food in season and cook with ingredients that cool and freeze quickly in big batches of soups and sauces.
At the Community Commons, a station is dedicated to being predominantly vegan and vegetarian. The station is 70% vegan, but breakfast is not included in this percentage due to limited plant-based options. They have also added more disposable serveware and portion-size variants.
Due to the increase in single-waste products, dining halls at DU and elsewhere have struggled with encouraging sustainability while their trash intake increases. Sourcing materials that are truly sustainable poses a major challenge.
Ira Simon, the resident district manager of DU’s dining services, says “purchasing and production [of dining hall food] at this time is on track and going well.” It has taken years for them to find the right way to stay on track with DU’s sustainability goals and purchase locally.
The biggest sustainability challenge is the switch to takeout services within dining halls. This has increased the number of disposable materials, which has also increased costs. Sodexo is used to purchasing china, silver and glasses a few times throughout the year and not buying plasticware that is going to be thrown away in bulk.
DU has other efforts to minimize food waste and encourage sustainability in dining halls like the DU Food Pantry, ELC Garden, Bridge community garden, Real Food challenge and Swipe Out Hunger where Sodexo accepts donations from students which provide food for those in need. These programs encourage students to be educated and engaged with food sustainability.
It is important for students on and off-campus to be aware of portion sizes and how much food they are truly wasting. It is even possible to track your individual food waste at home. This level of awareness should motivate students to be mindful of improving their carbon footprint.
