Cutting Food Waste at the 2022 Summit – And at Your Next Event
As a food waste-focused organization, the catering at our events is important, not only because it brings us together and facilitates meaningful connection, but because we want to “walk the walk” of food waste reduction by changing the narrative about abundance and innovating new models for reducing food waste at events. Similar to an all-you-can-eat buffet or the produce bins at your local grocery store, human experience has conditioned us to expect full serving trays and platters of food when we go through the standard conference lunch buffet – but like the buffet and produce bins, these can lead to waste.
So what can we do about it? At the 2022 Food Waste Solutions Summit, we were privileged to work alongside D’Amico Catering, a creative and mission-driven team that was willing to challenge the status quo and implement new strategies to reduce waste. Here’s what we did with them:?
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In all of these examples, building a strong relationship with the catering team was essential to our success. That partnership and the innovative strategies it allowed led to some exciting food waste reduction results -?the total food waste for the three-day event was just under 30 pounds, which is 95% less waste than for a comparable event.?This focus on food waste reduction, alongside other sustainability practices put in place, led to the Summit receiving?MeetGreen’s?highest sustainability rating for an event, categorized by leadership within the industry, innovative research and performance, and influencing change with venues and vendors.?(See below for our report card.)
Even ReFED still has room for improvement – there was avoidable waste among the 30 pounds at the end of the event, and there were some dishes we ran out of too early, but we are excited to be changing the narrative around what is?possible?and what is?acceptable?in event settings. Join us in 2023 as we continue to make food the center of our events and learn together better ways to go about “business as usual.”
Many hands make light work.
2 年I am loving my Tupperware containers that brought home my to-go lunches! #sustainability