We’re all familiar with the pyramid of dietary guidelines from the FDA—that heavily-advertised illustration designed to help people eat a balanced diet.
But what if I told you there was a second food pyramid?
Instead of illustrating a balanced diet, this food pyramid shows the hierarchy of the best ways to recover food waste.
The Food Recovery Hierarchy is a helpful guide for determining the highest and best use of surplus food. Here is a brief explanation of each tier in order from most preferred to least preferred:
1. Source Reduction & Reuse
The best way to handle surplus food is to not have surplus food at all. One of the most important things you can do to prevent waste is to track your event’s actual consumption data and use that information to adjust your food orders for future events.
How many extra servings did you have at each meal? Were you close to your actual number of attendees or way over? Did guests clean their plates or were they served more than they could finish?
2. Feed Hungry People
When you do end up with surplus food, the best use for it is to feed people. This can take the form of feeding staff after the event, saving food for reuse in other meals, or donating to food banks, soup kitchens and shelters.
In order to save prepared food for reuse or donation, it must be kept covered at the proper temperature for food safety and not have been served on the event floor. Ensure you have a process in place to safely store all surplus food to maximize the amount you can donate or reuse.
3. Feed Animals
Animals may be able to eat food that is stale or no longer fit for human consumption. Though most events likely won’t generate enough food waste to feed livestock, consider reaching out to local farmers to see if they have a use for smaller amounts of food waste as animal feed, or if you anticipate having a large quantity of food waste from an event.
4. Industrial Uses
This tier includes conversion of food oils to fuel (such as trucks that run on french fry oil). It also includes the use of technologies like anaerobic digesters to recover the energy from food in the form of biogas.
5. Composting
You might be surprised to see composting so far down the hierarchy! Keep in mind that the EPA pyramid is designed to address all levels of food production and distribution, not only events. Composting is definitely not the ideal use for large quantities of edible food, and I encourage my clients to donate viable food whenever possible.
However, composting is a great landfill alternative for food scraps generated by events. While these food scraps may not be enough to reliably feed a hog farm, they can easily total hundreds of pounds for a single event. Through composting, these scraps can become an enriching soil additive for farmers and gardeners.
Because Indiana currently has more commercial infrastructure in place for composting than for anaerobic digestion, at this time it’s my number one recommendation for disposing of inedible food scraps.
6. Landfill/Incineration
We don’t want food to end up here! While some facilities have the technology to capture energy from landfill gases or incinerated waste, these abilities do not exist in all areas and come along with the facilities’ other potential environmental risks.
So what’s an event professional to do with all of this information? Here’s a quick summary of the best ways to recover food waste
- Reduce surplus food production as much as possible
- Keep all surplus food covered at a safe temperature so it can be reused or donated
- Direct all inedible food scraps to farms, industrial use, or compost facilities, depending on what is available in your area
What are your tips for reducing food waste? Post a comment below and let me know!
Sometimes guests don’t clean their plates like their momma told ’em. I’ll help you set up food scrap composting for your next event.