Morrison Health Care Executive Summary

organizations like these, as an individual you could try to reduce food waste by giving away

Our country is experiencing a food poverty explosion. Five years ago, food banks were a rarity. Nowadays, there are over a thousand across the UK and the phrase “food bank” is accepted into everyday vocabulary. Thirteen million people are living below the breadline, that’s almost one in five people, and the numbers are continuing to rise drastically. The use of food banks is continuing to grow, and doctors say the amount of people living in food poverty in now an increasing public health issue. In 2013/14, the Trussell Trust estimated that over 20 million meals were given to people in food poverty by the growing network of food charities across our nation. Far more has to be done

The USDA claims that each year, 25.9 million tons of America’s food is thrown away, the equivalent to a quarter of the total amount produced. Nationally, the wasted food is a damaging financial setback, amounting to $1 billion just to get rid of during a time of ascending food prices, nonetheless (Oliver, 2007). Food waste has skyrocketed since 1970 at an astonishing 50% increase rate, yet according to the FAO, one-sixth of America doesn’t get enough to eat.

With the seemingly unstoppable growth of the world’s population and a projected global population of nine billion by 2050, the matter of whether or not there will be enough food to support the world’s populace is brought into question (Parfitt, et al., 2010). However, amid the concern for an adequate food supply, there is an immense amount of food waste produced by the world, including the United States. In fact, “according to the Natural Resources Defense Council as much as 40 percent of all food produced in the United States never gets eaten and typically ends up in the landfills or goes unharvested in the field “(King, 2015).

There is enough food waste in America to fill up 730 football stadiums. Yet, ironically there were almost 50 million people who live in households that are food-insecure in 2013. Thus, it is critically important to help reduce (or at the very least reevaluate) the amount of food that is wasted so it can be used to help those who can’t always afford it, or, help to reduce the impact of methane released by landfills, or, help to use less resources gone into making the produce.

Food waste is an environmental, economic, and ethical problem that can lead to less calorie intake and unnecessary damage of our assets. Individual behavior can redesign food waste at home and lead to bigger changes in the ecosystem. The problem is Americans throw out more food than glass, paper, and plastic. Also about 25% of food grown, processed, and transported in the US will never be consumed. When food is disposed in a landfill it rots and becomes a significant source of methane— a potent greenhouse gas with 21 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide.

An educational campaign should be launched to inform and encourage new behaviors. All consumers should be shown the benefit of composting versus traditional disposal methods. Once consumers have been properly educated, encouraging participation is key. This would include providing a composting method for waste to be properly composted. The food recycling program would provide the means for all associates to begin composting donations rather than disposing via trash receptacles. Food compost bins should be provided in any food service industry to allow for proper disposal of waste. Companies should locate composting facilities and begin distributing food waste to said facilities rather than traditional trash disposal services. If possible and practical, companies should work to create their own composting stations.

I worked at Real Canadian Superstore from last five months and the amount of food they throw away every day is pretty huge. I don’t feel good throwing food every day but I have to do it on regular basis. Supermarkets throwing away vast amount food every day and on the other side some people are not getting two meals a day. Once I asked my manager why we throw this much food if we can donate it? The answer I got was shocking, he told me that we are here to do business, not community service. Not only supermarkets but farmers and individuals too are responsible for increasing food waste problem. This has both negative on the environment and the waste of our resources. Food

Every day I stand near the garbage compactor and watch pounds and pounds of produce go down the garbage hole never eaten for many reasons. Some produce is simply too ugly for customers to want to consume, for example like a deformed bell pepper, a bent cucumber, a freckled banana. Some produce is gently bruised like an apple that was pressed a little too hard or a tomato that was bruised from customers “testing” it for juiciness. So much produce that has little to nothing wrong with it is simply thrown away every day at local grocery stores like Albertsons. Meanwhile, there is anywhere up to 200 hungry homeless in Denton County (Point in time Survey.) Places like Our Daily bread offer meals to the homeless during the week and they are often

I have been doing research on food waste in Athens, Ohio. The goal of my research is to find a plausible solution to the waste. To begin the gathering of information, I searched through the Ohio University ArticlesPlus Database to find any journals that I could find pertaining to the state of America’s food waste, how we can make a difference, and what has already been implemented to make a change. This was my way of looking at the amount of food wasted from a bigger perspective. I found four sources on the issue as a whole, to which I have included in my annotated bibliography. All sources have a primary focus on statistics of food waste in America, and finding a solution to the problem that we have created. The statistics

In simple terms, food waste is the loss of food that goes directly to the trash can uneaten or is thrown away. According to a report conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), “about forty percent of the available food in the United States is wasted. Food is just too valuable to throw it away like trash” (Lipinski 2). Furthermore, Lipinski mentions that the NRDC “estimates that getting food on the tables of the people requires up to ten percent of the total U.S. energy budget, uses fifty percent of the nation’s land, and absorbs more than eighty percent of freshwater consumed in the United States” (3).

LeanPath is a automated food waste tracking systems to help users reduce pre-consumer food waste. LeanPath quantifies how much food is thrown out in a commercial kitchen due to spoilage, expiration or overproduction, with the goal being to reduce food purchases to match demand. A camera linked to a countertop scale documents each portion of food before it enters the garbage bin, providing photographic evidence. LeanPath turns waste reduction into a sort of competition, using online scoreboards that allow users to analyze the data to understand the underlying causes for waste. LeanPath can enable dramatic reduction in global food waste and

There are billions of people struggling every day to have enough to eat, and billions of tons of food being tossed in the garbage, food waste is gaining increasing awareness as a serious environmental and economic issue. Research shows that about 60 million metric tons of food is wasted a year in the United States, with an estimated value of $162 billion. About 32 million tons of it end up in landfills, at a cost of about $1.5 billion a year to local government this economic crisis is worldwide! My research estimates that a third of all the food produced in the world is never consumed, and the total cost of that food waste could be as high as $400 billion a year. The food discarded by retailers and consumers in the most developed countries would be more than enough to feed all of the world’s hungry people, but it is not just those countries that have problems with food waste, it is also an issue in African countries like South Africa. The problem is expected to grow worse as the world’s population increases, unless actions are taken to reduce the waste. Food waste is not only a social cost, but it contributes to growing environmental problems like global warming, experts say, with the production of food consuming vast quantities of water, fertilizer and land. The fuel that is burned to process, refrigerate and transport it also adds to the environmental cost. Most food waste is thrown away in landfills, where it decomposes and emits methane, a potent

Reducing food waste that can otherwise be reused is an important aspect of sustainability. Sustainability is important to the well-being of the earth and gaining more notice among consumers, therefore sustainability is of importance to managers in all areas of business, including hotel restaurant managers. The scope of food waste within restaurants and specifically the amount created by hotels, is important to take notice of and begin creating plans to remedy. By combining different methods being used and tested in the hotel industry, hotel brands such as McMenamins have a greater chance of successful food waste reduction. Focusing on ways to reuse and compost food that would otherwise be wasted will not only help McMenamins to save money associated with food waste, but also improve the company’s image which will positively affect the company’s bottom line.

According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), food wastage, “food produced and not eaten,” emits enough greenhouse gasses (GHG) to be ranked third amongst global emitters (FAO 2013, 6). In New York City (NYC) it is estimated that businesses “produce more than 650,000 tons of food waste annually” (Turso 2017). This specific food waste is classified as food scrap, cooked food which is still edible, but no longer useful to the business due to a myriad of reasons. Whatever the reason may be for the company, this tonnage of food has the potential and possibility of being recovered for redistribution to food banks, soup kitchens, and other food rescue organizations. For example, two of the largest organizations in NYC, City Harvest and Food Bank NYC, will collect around 59 million and 24 million pounds in 2017 respectively, of unprocessed/non-perishable food. This is equivalent to about 42 thousand tons or 6.5 percent of annual food waste from scraps. Despite having warehouses, fleets of vehicles, and numerous volunteers, two of the largest organizations barely make an impact on the total amount of food rescued versus food wasted.