I’ve often come across waste studies that estimate how much food isn’t eaten in a city or state. Since researchers aren’t sorting and weighing food waste at every home and restaurant, I often wonder how they come up with the estimates.
Now I have an answer. Page five of this 2002 Massachusetts food waste study lists the equations used to estimate the amount of squandered food at various locations.
Some of the “multipliers” aren’t that easily digested because they calculate food waste using the number of employees. That’s the case with restaurants and supermarkets (3,000 lbs. waste per employee per year). Thankfully, there are more digestible numbers for colleges (0.35 lbs. per meal) and hospitals and nursing homes (0.6 lbs. food waste per meal).
The report, prepared by New Hampshire’s Draper/Lennon, Inc., has plenty of other interesting info. Take a gander, if you have a minute…think of it as my valentine to you (which is a bit rosier than this message).