BCFN Young Earth Solutions YES!
Zero Food Waste Catered Event Abstract: Lean thinking is a mindset with a commitment to achieve a totally waste-free operation that is focused on your customerfs requests. The key is to eliminate the non-value-added waste in the value stream. Considering Rother and Shookfs idea "Whenever there is a product for a customer, there is a value stream. The challenge lies in seeing it", I will apply the lean thinking to the Catered Events. The result is the Zero Food Waste Catered Event's procedure which follows the principles of the Lean Management. A lean organization is achieved by simplifying and continuously improving all processes and relationships in an environment of trust, respect and full collaborators involvement. The ZFWCE technique will result in a decrease of food waste and environmental impact of the buffet. At the same time, it will guarantee a balanced meal and a pleasant time for the guests. I will show how the ZFWCE's procedure works by organizing a catered event, following the five-step method. I will use techniques such as the double pyramidh, which will provide the required nutritional values for a healthy meal and decrease the environmental impact of the buffet. Finally, a cost-benefit analysis will evaluate the models performance.
Author
Lucrezia Jalongo
Zero Food Waste Catered Event The European Commission calculates that in the EU alone, 90 million tones of food are wasted every year. Much of this is food still suitable for human consumption. At the same time huger is on the rise, with 18,000 children dying each day from hunger and related illness. In addition to the environmental impacts of food waste to land and water use, according to the European Commission’s roadmap, the food and drink value chain in the EU causes 17 % of our direct greenhouse gas emissions and 28 % of material resource use. Given the need to simultaneously stabilize the climate and the population, eradicate poverty, and restore the earth’s natural system, our generation is facing a challenge without precedent. I’m a Management Engineer, I live in Milan and I want to be active on wastes’ issues in my environment. I believe that improving the sustainability of the food chain is essential in tackling climate change, resource scarcity and global food security. When it comes to wasting food, convivial events are some the biggest culprits. On average, for instance a restaurant wastes about a pound of food per customer per meal. This trend of wastes is indicative of catered events generally, be it weddings, receptions, banquets. In our culture, as it is in most of the others, food isn’t only nourishment for survival but is much more. Feeding defines relationships and it started with the breastfeeding. Therefore while keeping the food as an object needed for survival, we should also consider the ability of food to get people together and the abuse that occurs now days of this last characteristic. A buffet should have enough food to make the moment enjoyable for those invited. The meal must provide the adequate nourishment to the guests without generating unsustainable food waste which will also increase the environmental issues. We organize banquets for weddings, birthdays, concerts or conferences. People in those moments want to share happiness they don’t want to gain weight. The great challenge of our time is to regain a deeper, richer and more motivating connection with the feeding. We should get back to the time when food was surviving and when food had an acknowledged value. Nowadays, bad trends are pursued while organizing a reception. For instance, planners seek quality without any concern for the quantities which are wasted to achieve that quality. On the other hand, instead of quality some organizers seek for quantities which leads to an increase of the rate of obesity without guaranteeing nutrients. Moreover, some of the food waste is driven by the difficulty in estimating the food consumption, but most of it is driven by etiquette and showmanship, no one would like to run out of food during a party, so the trend is to overproduce. The improvement in the performances that we need to achieve are: • reduce food waste, • eliminate the overproduction before inventing ways to reuse it,
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guarantee nutritional values for a healthy meal for the guests, assure the conviviality of the event.
Different solutions are available. For instance, reducing the amount of food served can reduce the amount wasted. Choosing quality over quantity is important for our health, hence is better to eat less quantity of a higher quality food instead of overeating garbage food. In addition, it is possible to reduce upstream waste by buying ugly food and by using what is local and seasonal. Since food at events tends to be perfect: same size, same shape, same color, same flavor, we have lost our appreciation for ugly food over the years, and it is time for it to make a comeback. Moreover, extra attention should be given to carbon and water intensive foods, for instance chefs can propose dishes which are made using the double pyramid of nutrition published by barilla as a guide. All these solutions are available, but not easy to be seen. Therefore, a planner might need a procedure to eliminate the waste. In order to help companies to obtain a catered event, which has a low volume of food waste, I have created a specific technique called Zero Food Waste Catered Event’s technique. I propose the implementation of a Catered Events Management which follows the principles of the lean management. When I talk about Lean Management I mean applying certain tools which allow to reduce waste and to eliminate unnecessary actions in the planning process. The technique can be applied either to small or to large events. The technique is simple. It will allow to reduce food waste, to guarantee the conviviality of the buffet and to enforce the quality of the meals. The Five steps for guiding the implementation of the Lean technique are: 1. Define the value of the product. The planners need to understand the customer’s needs and requirements. They take the client to maximize the sustainability of the meal. 2. Identify all the steps in the value stream for each process to be pursued. Achieve a complete organization of the event, and eliminate, whenever possible, worthless actions which generate unnecessary waste. 3. Make of the value-creating steps occur in tight sequence so the product will flow smoothly toward the customer. 4. As flow is introduced, let customers pull value from the next upstream activity. 5. As value is specified, value streams are identified, wasted steps are removed, and flow and pull are introduced, begin the process again and continue it until a state of perfection is reached in which perfect value is created with no waste. In order to validate the technique, I will organize a catered event, following step by step the ZTWCE’s technique and evaluating the performance in the end. The evaluation will estimate the benefits of • the benefits of the decrease in the food waste, • t the benefits of the decrease in the environmental impacts, • the balance in the nutritional values for an healthy meal for the guests, • the costs related to the technique implementation.