Category Archives: College

Friday Buffet: Campus Report

Don’t look now but “trayless” dining is really taking off. On Earth Day, 300 colleges with Sodexo (they’ve dropped the ‘h’) foodservice went without trays. That means I’ll be plenty busy updating my Trayless tab. The press release (and company blog entry) provided the first estimate of the water savings trayless dining brings–200 gallons conserved […]

April 25, 2008 | Also posted in Friday Buffet, Trayless | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Here’s an article from the newspaper at Iowa’s Luther College, giving the student response to traylessness. The piece was fueled largely by the Facebook group “Caf Trays will destroy the planet!!!! Really?????,” which prompted a letter to the editor complaining about a lack of balance. — — Food recovery in the holy land. Hallelujah! — […]

April 18, 2008 | Also posted in Composting, Food Recovery, Friday Buffet, Legislation, Trayless | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

Tigers and Strawberries continues its series on avoiding restaurant food waste, discussing efficient storeroom procedures and utilizing surplus. — — You cartographers and map lovers will enjoy the compost path at Vermont’s Green Mountain College. The school feeds two pigs with the prep waste (kitchen scraps) and composts the plate waste (what students discard). — […]

April 11, 2008 | Also posted in Friday Buffet, Restaurant | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

With Passover just around the corner, it seems ironic that Egyptian bread is in the news. The Financial Times of Germany (even more irony?) reported that 20 percent of Egyptian bread made with subsidized wheat is going to waste. The culprit: Corrupt bakers sell their cheap flour on the black market or deliberately ruin some […]

April 4, 2008 | Also posted in Friday Buffet, International, Restaurant, Supermarket, Trayless | Comments closed

Posting an Objection to Waste

Amrit is a student at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras). In an effort to curb food waste, he made some posters to put up in the dining hall. He sums it up well on his blog: Most of us waste food. We don’t care. Will a poster really help? I am not […]

March 24, 2008 | Also posted in International | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

For your listening pleasure, check out this discussion of food waste on BBC/Radio 4’s The Food Programme. — — If college food waste is caused partly by students not liking the choices, will a student menu rating Web site help? Middlebury College will see. — — This Subaru plant in Indiana is a “zero-waste” facility. […]

March 14, 2008 | Also posted in Friday Buffet, Institutional, International | Comments closed

Yes, UConn!

The University of Connecticut concluded a three-week trayless experiment (that we previewed) and it was a success. The per student waste decreased by 28 percent when trays were not available. The first week included food waste awareness materials and weighing food waste to serve as the experiment’s control. The second week, Whitney dining hall went […]

March 10, 2008 | Also posted in Trayless | Comments closed

Friday Buffet

The beef recall saga continues, unfortunately. — — I’m sad to report that students at my alma mater are wasting lots of food. Come on, Wesleyan–you’re better than that. — — On the other side of the college coin, Columbia University has begun a “Trayless Thursdays” experiment. Ditto for Williams College. Not to split hairs, […]

March 7, 2008 | Also posted in Food Safety, Friday Buffet, International, Trayless | Comments closed

Providing Abundance

I recently received this comment from Brett, a student at Allegheny College, on his school’s dining practices: the reasoning I get for the overpreparation is so they don’t run out of any item. The rationale is you are supposed to be able to come at the last minute of the meal (9:59 for breakfast, 1:29 for […]

February 21, 2008 | Also posted in History and Culture, Institutional | Comments closed

The Trayless Tab

As you may have noticed, there’s a new tab on the site: Trayless. I consider the page my repository for keeping track of which colleges and universities are shunning trays to avoid food waste. Please let me know if I’ve missed your school–it’s very much a work in progress. Also, the traylessness doesn’t have to […]

February 20, 2008 | Also posted in Trayless | Comments closed