Fried rice, bok choy, roasted eggplant, and oxtail soup – the dinner table is overflowing with a feast of delicious foods that my eyes challenge my stomach to intake. I’m an eight year old girl, and my sister four, but my appetite is a ruthless, angsty 13-year old boy. My sister picks at her tofu and half bowl of unfinished noodles whining about being full while my dad piles more food onto my plate. Voices from around the dining table chime in to remind us that post-consumer waste is the most blasphemous sin of all. “Finish all the food in your bowl.” “Remember, there are children starving in Africa and we don’t want to waste any of it.” “No leaving the table until every last grain of rice is eaten.” Ever since most of us were children we have been told to finish the food on our plate and not to waste food because there are less fortunate people elsewhere. My parents used to even threaten my sister’s picky habits with no food for three days if she didn’t finish her food. Growing up in an Asian household, it has always been engrained in my mind that food waste means post-consumer waste. As I got older I realized I wasn’t the only one who thought this way. Post-consumer waste definitely got most of the attention whenever the already rare subject of food waste was brought up. In fifth grade we went on a retreat with school to a campsite and we had to weigh all our food waste to compete for a lower number than the other schools. One guy, Jose Barren, volunteered to eat everyone’s leftover food at the table in order to reduce the food waste. We all thought we were saving the planet by stuffing ourselves with germ-contaminated foods. But why would we think otherwise, when we were taught this way? No one ever talked about the shy, timid twin of food waste, pre-consumer food waste. In fact, finding research on it was hard enough, as most of the leads and articles brought me to post-consumer information.
Pre-consumer food waste is defined as food wasted or lost due to trimmings, preparation, spoilage, expiration, or overproduction. This is controlled by the kitchen, which is essentially the food waste that’s involved in preparing meals. Post-consumer food waste references the food wasted from your plate or unserved leftovers and is controlled more-so by the consumer in terms of eating habits, portion sizes, and self-service (EPA 2012). 40% of the amount of food is wasted in total US food production and 4-10% of the amounts of food consumers purchase ends up as kitchen waste. In developing countries, 40% of losses occur at post-harvest and processing levels while in industrialized countries more than 40% of losses happen at retail and consumer levels (FAO). Food waste as a whole contributes profusely to the positive feedback cycle of CO2 emission contributions. The food uses CO2 throughout its entire process from being grown on farms and transported to loading and holding areas, then getting processed, stored, and prepared through different facilities, only to be thrown out into the landfill via CO2-inducing vehicles and contribute more CO2 in a congregated food waste pile. Additionally, agriculture and forestry accounted for 20-25% of global annual emissions of greenhouse gases in 2010 (Blanco 2014). Since information on pre-consumer waste was not as abundant as I would like, I decided to add to this bank of information and draw upon some firsthand insights through an interview with Carter Phillips. He is the manager at Bevier Café on the campus of University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. He is knowledgeable on how food waste and the process works from putting in food orders to making and prepping the food to taking care of the waste. Bevier Café is a learning facility in which students of the Hospitality Management concentration from the Food Science and Human Nutrition major take the course and use the café as a rotating lab through making salads, baking desserts, preparing hot foods, managing the café and much more. Through Carter’s 7 years at the café, and being an alum of the Food Science and Human Nutrition program that I am currently enrolled in, he has led the café to implement and adapt many eco-friendly habits. He has a passion for sustainable actions especially since the Bevier café is a teaching facility and he believes by instilling these sustainable values into the students that they can take it with them in their future. Bevier Café has introduced multiple efforts into their food process in efforts of being more sustainable and local such as using beef for their hamburgers from the meat lab on campus which is used for the Animals Sciences department. These cows are feed-research animals so using their beef is safe, available, and local. Carter has also recently this past year started growing an herb garden in the back of the café that helps in sustainability to reduce their carbon footprint. He says that with this new herb garden they are able to grow about 80-90% of all the herbs that they need to use in house. The benefits of having an endless supply of herbs, cutting them off freshly when you need it so that none is wasted when you don’t need it right away, is a positive side effect of this shift but the main target in this effort is not to physically reduce the kitchen waste and prep trimmings since the waste coming from unused herbs is relatively low as herbs are small and used in fewer quantities. Herbs are also relatively cheap to begin with so the financial benefit here is not the main target either, but ultimately it is the offset of CO2 emissions from transportation that makes this investment worth it. Another implementation Carter has made to the café starting from this past Fall 2018 was a collaboration between the university’s pilot plant and student farm. Using the pilot plant as part of the Illinois Sustainable Food Project and working together with the student farm from the Crop Sciences department, the café has introduced a new menu item that has become a staple item on the menus – pizza. The pilot plant from the Food Science department processes tomatoes, grinds flour grown on campus and also has processed pumpkin puree, collard greens and currants. The main items used from the pilot plant for the pizza are tomato sauce and flour. Carter describes the process, “the crop sciences department grows these products, which is funded through dining services or crop sciences, then it is sent to the pilot plant to be processed so we can reduce waste from spoilage because if they process it then there’s reduced harvesting time and longer storage time.” The different areas and resources at the university have allowed this to all be made possible, but it was Carter’s decision and vision to see to it that this all was able to come together and stay enforced. “Sourcing foods through local venues are not generally cheaper,” as Carter describes, “It depends on the season, which is the hardest part of it, but it does reduce shipping and transportation.” The efforts of the café have not gone unnoticed but the volume of waste in food service operations is still noticeable. These programs are not enough on their own but it is still no doubt effective because there is a direct impact made when consciously choosing not to buy loads of ingredients that will contribute to greater carbon footprints. Carter is an example to look to for local cafes or small businesses but he also acknowledges that there is still a lot of room to go. Nevertheless they have chosen to start where they have because it is low hanging fruit – attainable yet effective and all still at the same time begs for more action. Carter’s future plans for the café to achieve is to divert their food waste using existing transportation services that are set up on campus for garbage and recycling to bring their waste to a bio-digester that produces energy through the capturing of methane. However due to cost, it is still not a viable option currently. A pre-consumer waste study conducted for the café showed that their total pre-consumer waste for a week’s worth is about 100lbs, which all currently goes to landfill. This amount of waste still needs to be transported whether it’s going to a landfill or compost, so there are still many logistics to work out, but having a plan shows its already plausible status. Of course not every restaurant customer has the influence or the power to push for changes towards sustainability from their local café but many restaurant owners or heads of households have some flexibility and freedom to make slight changes in their decisions to implement more sustainable practices. Many customers purely just don’t realize the impact of pre-consumer waste and so restaurants don’t feel that necessity to change their practices. Looking back to Carter as an example, he believes that the café can make a huge impact since they’re a teaching facility. The sustainability effort definitely helps and has made a difference as Carter has been monitoring it over the years seeing the café at a before versus after state. “Our food system won’t sustain environmentally and for the population. What can we do to change that? There is no solution, but only a slowing.” Bevier café is a small café but has been influencing the lives of many for over 40 years. Many of their customers are regular daily diners and the café appreciates its customers and heavily takes into consideration feedback and suggestions provided to them. Every weekday lunch for 40 years Bevier café has been nourishing the people in its community and the community is what shapes the café in how it evolves and adapts. As consumers in this world, we are what drive the demands of the industry. As of 2010 33 billion tons of food was thrown away, making it the largest component of municipal solid waste reaching landfills and incinerators (EPA 2012). Waste can no longer be procrastinated and it is no longer someone else’s concern. Waste is a concern of now with a role cut out for everyone. Food waste is a major sink of resources like water, land, energy, labor, and capital when it could in it of itself be a resource. When food breaks down into a waste form, it produces methane and contributes to increased greenhouse gas emissions, however if that waste is properly distributed into the bio-degrader mentioned earlier, it can capture that methane and use it as a form of energy to produce electricity (Spiegel 2018). This practice is already commonly adapted in Europe showing how reducing food waste is important to bringing about change in multiple areas such as financial, environmental, and social (EPA 2012). Carter compared our current environmental situation to falling down an avalanche. There is no saving us, just a slowing of the disaster. Although it can come off as cynical, Carter’s perspective on the situation is what has driven him to take actions and make sustainable changes. His approach towards tackling food waste is a realistic and efficient target; now all that’s needed is an avalanche of effort. Now, I’m a twenty-one year old woman with an appetite of a ruthless angsty 13 year old boy, hungry to see changes for sustainability and thirsty for more attention towards pre-consumer food waste as it so deserves. And you, you are the snowflake we need, from being an enabler to being a contributor to an avalanche of change. References Blanco, G., et al., Section 5.3.5.4: Agriculture, Forestry, Other Land Use, in: Chapter 5: Drivers, Trends and Mitigation (archived 30 December 2014), in: IPCC AR5 WG3 2014, p. 383. Emissions aggregated using 100-year global warming potentials from the IPCC Second Assessment Report. FAO. “Key Facts on Food Loss and Waste You Should Know!” FAO, FAO of the UN, 2019, www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/. Guzowski, Roger. “Pre-Consumer Composting.” Max-R, 30 Aug. 2013, www.max-r.com/post/pre-consumer-composting. Shackman, Andrew. “FOOD WASTE TRACKING: THE PATH TO PRE -CONSUMER FOOD WASTE PREVENTION .” EPA, LeanPath, 12 June 2012, www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-01/documents/2_leanpath_shakman.pdf. Spiegel, Jan Ellen. “Company Turns Food Waste into Electricity » Yale Climate Connections.” Yale Climate Connections, 12 Oct. 2018, www.yaleclimateconnections.org/2018/03/company-turns-food-waste-into-electricity/.
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