The Produce Project: Day 2

I recently worked at a supermarket produce department for three months, an endeavor I’ve dubbed The Produce Project. On the first day of work, I got right into the action by tossing more than 50 pounds of “sell-by” date casualties and watching some computer training videos.

Because the second day began in the afternoon, I missed the morning cull. Instead, I spent most of my time stocking the produce section for night shoppers. The store remained open until 11 p.m., so we tried to have everything mostly full when the last produce employee left at 7 or 8.

My boss Larry, who told me he has 32 years of experience in the biz, stressed the importance of having neat and brimming displays. The latter bit of shopping psychology interests me most–this idea that nobody wants to buy from the dregs. That’s why they restock for relatively few night shoppers. The produce would be better off in the store room, but the supermarket’s main focus is sales, not maximizing its products’ lifespan. 

It’s a tradeoff. They’re willing to toss a bunch of loose mushrooms that sat out overnight in hopes of selling more by having a full-looking display. It’s not necessarily wrong, just interesting. They know they won’t sell all of them, but figure they might lose a sale with a half-full bin.

Also, the store’s worst-case scenario would be missing a sale because an item isn’t on the shelf. Supermarkets avoid that at all costs by routinely overordering, and, thus, knowingly creating food waste.

In between restocking, I watched another training video on the computer, which included a video game-like interactive section. They’d show a picture of a pear or head of lettuce with some bad spots and ask, “Would you leave this on the shelf?” The answers were obvious and the lesson learned was simple: throw out anything with a bad spot, bruise or bump.

Finally, I learned that there isn’t much waste when it comes to the store uniform. That’s because they make you buy your own supermarket logo shirt (to be worn with khakis). On the plus side, I now have a souvenir from my time in produce. 

April 11, 2007 | Posted in Supermarket, The Produce Project | Comments closed

Dinner Plans

My wife and I had guests over for dinner recently. For the main dish, we made a creamy mac ‘n cheese with chicken and broccoli. Because the recipe was for 8 to 10 servings, we halved it to serve four adults and a toddler. Given today’s serving sizes, that seemed pretty safe. Plus, we also were having salad and they were bringing dessert. 

But after dinner, there was nothing left. I repeat, nothing. It was strange seeing a stark salad bowl and an empty main course dish. It was clear that if there was more of either, someone would have eaten it.

While there was some dessert left over and nobody left hungry, I felt a bit bad. Funny how that works. I guess we’re taught that hosting requires an abundance. If you make the perfect amount, which you could argue we did, it’s seen as not enough.

Of course some would say that the right amount includes having extra. It gets quite subjective here. I’ve spoken with many people, especially mothers, who feel the urge to provide an abundance. That said, non-mothers of both genders feel the same pull.

This compulsion for abundance can lead to food waste. Granted, it doesn’t have to, as you can always eat the leftovers later. But, keeping in mind recent Easter or Passover remains, there’s only so many times you can eat leftover lamb, brisket or whatever it may be. 

While I wish we’d had a bit more food to serve our guests, I also wish our culture hadn’t taught me to feel like such a bad host.

April 9, 2007 | Posted in Household | Comments closed

Labeling Waste

While I was visiting my family in Boston recently, we ate at a local chain called Not Your Average Joe’s. It seems like the kind of restaurant we’ll see more of in future, serving a diverse menu of “creative casual cuisine” (whatever that means). It’s like a more local, higher-end Chili’s.

Our table of five adults and two three-year-olds received two iron stands filled with focaccia chunks. We must have been given two pounds of the Italian bread, which they’re required to throw away after each party leaves because of contamination concerns. I hope they’ve found some other purpose for what must be a few trash bags full of focaccia they throw out every night. A more sensible approach would be to give less bread at first and allow diners to ask for more if they so desire.

While we’ve all experienced wasted bread, I hadn’t ever seen the label on our leftovers. Each to-go box had this sticker (pictured below) with food safety info and a line for the server to write the dish and the day’s date. While I applaud reminding customers when their entree was purchased, I fear it may be used as an excuse to chuck that food a few days later. Leftovers, if refrigerated promptly, are safe up to a week later.

Most worrying, however, is the little slogan on the label’s bottom: “When in doubt, throw it out.” I don’t think folks need more help creating food waste. We seem to have that art mastered already, as, omitting pizza, 55 to 60 percent of all restaurant leftovers taken home aren’t eaten (according to my interview with Brian Wansink).  

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April 5, 2007 | Posted in Food Safety, Restaurant | Comments closed

The Produce Project: Day 1–Training

As I mentioned last time, I began my first day working in a supermarket produce department throwing out about 50 pounds of fruit and vegetables. My first task was culling all of the packaged produce with a sell-by date that fell on that day, despite it being 8 a.m. 

By the time I had finished throwing away the perfectly good pineapple, watermelon, lettuce, mushrooms, etc., I was told to report to the office for training. This consisted of watching the appropriately titled “Entry Level Produce Associate Training Video” on an old, dusty computer. In that engrossing work, I learned that “the rule of thumb when culling is to ask yourself if you would buy the product. If you wouldn’t buy it, then why would the customer?”

The video continued, “If you ever have a question about whether a product should be culled, remove it and discuss it with your manager.” Later, whenever I’d ask my manager, who I’ll call Larry here, he’d invariably say, “Toss it.”

Moving along in the cartoon-laden training, I learned why I’d been put right to use: All dated items were to be removed by 9 a.m. on the day of the sell-by date. The reason, it explained, was to “ensure we are offering the freshest quality produce to our customers so that they will shop with us again and again.”

You can’t argue with that logic–or can you? Sure, it makes sense, but I know that the clientele also enjoyed saving money. Whenever we would put out discounted bananas that were already ripe, they sold like hot cakes.

The training even featured a visual culling exercise. It pictured an apple and said “Would you cull this item?” After clicking yes or no, I had to pass the same test with a pear, tomato and lettuce. Of course, there were no consequences for answering incorrectly.

The manager occasionally poked his head in a few times to ask if I was done yet. I needed to fill the holes I’d created with that morning’s culling. After all, it looked bad to have empty slots in the cold case. Apparently not as bad as having an item there on its sell-by date.

March 29, 2007 | Posted in Supermarket, The Produce Project | Comments closed

Restaurant Technology: Our Friend?

I came across this article in Fast Company about Slingshot, a restaurant tracking system made by Avero. Restaurants, especially fast food companies, often point to their technologies like Slingshot to show they’ve trimmed their waste.

While that’s usually true, by reading between the lines we can see that these systems can create another kind of waste. Paraphrasing the western Shane, Slingshot is just a tool…as good or as bad as the person using it. 

First the good: By knowing what diners like and how weather, holidays and events affect consumer demand, restaurants can make more accurate orders. As we see in the Fast Company article, cutting inventory waste and more efficient labor use led to large savings at the Rio casino’s 20 restaurants.

…with the efficiencies from Slingshot, “we spent almost $700,000 less in January ’06 on food than we did in January ’05–with increased food quality,” said William Becker, the Rio’s vice president of culinary operations. 

First of all, kudos for those improvements. Second, that figure makes you wonder how much food is wasted at restaurants not using the software. It also provides hope, because what business wouldn’t want to trim that much from its operating budget? Finally, it illustrates the massiveness of casino food operations and their potential to squander food. 

But the tracking systems can create waste, too, when restaurants push food and drinks on patrons. Induced overordering leads to half-eaten plates and more food in the waste stream.

“Service is where we’ve grown our revenue the most,” says Joe Grimaldi, the Rio’s executive director of food and beverage. “We’ve seen a $1.4 million growth in revenues across the board in the past year, strictly by turning order-takers into salespeople.”

At the Rio, each server is graded daily on an “Avero scorecard” that lists his average check, how many appetizers, entrées, and desserts he sold, whether he successfully peddled wine or beer, and if he managed to sell the table coffee or, better yet, the French press of Starbucks for $5.95.

In addition to creating plate waste, this upselling trend is what I dislike about eating out today. It’s unlikely that after eating an American-sized restaurant entree, you’re thinking ‘What I really need now is more food.’ Unless you’ve planned ahead by sharing an entree or ordering carefully, dessert is not what your stomach wants. Yet servers, most instructed to do so, rarely miss a chance to suggest an appetizer “to start you off” or “something sweet” to finish. 

Part of the problem: Both server and restaurant have an incentive to get you to order as much food as possible. And some establishments add competition to the mix by posting servers’ stats. In that environment, it’s no wonder restaurants fill barrels of trash every hour from plate waste.

March 27, 2007 | Posted in Casino, Restaurant, Technology | Comments closed

Sunday Portions

I recently lauded T.G.I. Friday’s “Right Portion, Right Price” menu. The New York Times addressed the same topic in Sunday’s business section examination of restaurant portions and prices.

I’m most interested in portion size because serving customers 2,000-calorie dinners often means that as much food finds its way to the dumpster as diners’ stomachs. This “plate waste” is a real factor in making food 17 percent of what’s discarded nationwide.

I’ve found it is difficult to get a candid answer on how restaurants view plate waste. The Times article provides one, indirectly, in asking how patrons’ preferences influence restaurants view of serving sizes: “Even if they don’t eat everything on the plate,” said Richard Johnson, Ruby Tuesday’s senior vice president, “they like that it’s a generous portion.” 

The article, which includes a neat visual representation of portions, is an interesting read. Its main question is whether T.G.I. Friday’s portions gamble will pay off. Will smaller, cheaper entrees lure more customers? And will they afford diners more room to order dessert or an appetizer?

If Friday’s “Right Portion” gambit works, and hopefully it will, we’ll see more of less.

March 25, 2007 | Posted in Restaurant | Comments closed

Chicken Chat

This is the last of two updates before I get back to posting about my experiences working in a grocery store produce section (“The Produce Project”).

On Wednesday, we talked about supermarkets throwing away rotisserie chickens after five hours. I asked Dr. Angela Fraser, a food safety expert at N.C. State University about this topic and she e-mailed that North Carolina and the FDA food code allow a store to display an item for four hours. N.C. law permits stores to sell chickens for longer if they make sure their temperature stays above 140 degrees. Those of you who can’t get enough food safety info, check out page 97 of the FDA Public Health guidelines.

Ron Hedrick, a health inspector in Orange County, N.C., told me that most supermarkets pull their chickens after four hours. Echoing Fraser, he said most stores don’t remove chickens for food safety reasons, though. “If they want to go a little longer, they’re allowed to do so as long as the chicken stays at 140 or above,” Hedrick said. “Stores that throw away birds after four hours, it’s a quality decision…maybe the product dries out or the skin gets tough.”

Sounds like something I wouldn’t pay full price for, but it doesn’t sound like trash. That’s where food recovery groups step in. Hedrick said that the stores could easily donate the chickens if they refrigerated them down to 45 degrees in four hours.

The Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, the main food recovery group in the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, recovers food from the store where I saw the five birds sent to the dumpster. But because IFFS is 20 miles away, there are plenty of stores closer to their headquarters and their budget isn’t infinite, the non-profit only collects from this store when its manager calls with an exceptionally large donations. For example, when the store rearranges its freezers and is forced to donate hundreds of pounds of frozen food. 

Smaller amounts–and yes, five birds is considered small–fall to the dumpster. “I wish they’d call us when they’re throwing away chicken,” said Dennis Wooten, the Warehouse Manager. “We’re low on meat now, so I’d love to have those chickens.”

March 23, 2007 | Posted in Food Safety, Supermarket | Comments closed

Composting Comestibles

In other news, I’ve started composting food scraps in earnest. Wednesday, I set up my compost bin, which looks like this:

While I’d been composting sporadically with a half-hearted pile, I’m fully invested now that I have an actual bin. I keep a Ben & Jerry’s pint by the sink to store all of my scraps. This container seems appropriately green–both because I’m reusing it and because those Vermont boys are pretty eco-friendly.

I’ve been filling the Vanilla pint every day mostly with peels, ends and coffee grinds that can’t be used. I don’t count that stuff as wasted food, but it is food waste that shouldn’t go to landfills. Hopefully, that distinction is clear. 

While I’ve been surprised by how quickly the B & J pint fills, it makes sense because each person makes about a 0.5 pounds of food waste and 4.5 pounds of trash each day. For those interested, the first figure comes from this PowerPoint document–nc-food-waste-generation.ppt–that features some cute looking trash. The second figure comes from page 12 of the EPA’s Municipal Solid Waste in the United States.

March 23, 2007 | Posted in Household | Comments closed

For the Birds

While buying a rotisserie chicken during a recent 9 p.m. shopping run, I faced a dilemma.   

On my previous trip to the store, the chickens were sold out because they were on sale. But, the clerk told me, on all other days, you can get discounted birds if they’ve sat for four hours. Knowing I was going to make chicken salad, I wasn’t daunted by that prospect. Mindful of this blog, I asked: “What’s the longest they sit?” The woman replied that after five hours, they’re thrown away.

Back to the most recent shopping trip, I found that the available birds were all packaged at around 3:50 pm. It being more than five hours later, I faced a choice: I could buy an old chicken at a small discount (turned out to be $1 off $6.99) or watch the clerk throw them all away. Part of me wanted to say, ‘if you’re going to just toss ’em, can I have one for free?’ Or couldn’t I just take them to somewhere they’d be eaten?

That’s where we get into the tricky world of food safety. Many supermarkets fear donating proteins like chickens because they’re afraid they won’t be handled properly and if someone gets sick, it’ll reflect poorly on the store. The food rescue groups able to get past that fear are ones with food safety training and refrigerated trucks.

I know the supermarket in question donates much food to the Inter-Faith Food Shuttle, which recovers rotisserie chickens from other stores. So what’s the problem? One hang up is that each store in a chain seems to have different ideas on what they will or won’t/can or can’t donate. Each particular store’s manager seems to make that call. Often they blame it on corporate, while corporate says it’s the store’s decision.

I ended up buying a chicken (and just enjoyed the resulting chicken salad pita), but I felt bad about the other birds. If the store cared about not wasting food, wouldn’t they sell the chickens for half-off every night at 9? They could also put older chickens in the refrigerated sections and sell them at a discount. That’s what they did at the grocery store where I worked. And then if they didn’t sell, a church group picked them up the next morning.   

If this store worried that such specials would dent regular sales, why not give them away? It’s not as if this store is afraid that selling discounted food will dent their image of freshness, as some stores claim. On that same trip, I bought four granny smith apples for $1 from the reduced produce shelf. I find this shelf economically and philosophically pleasing. Most reduced produce has one bad spot or slight discoloration. Here you can see the best and worst of the four. 

                                           reduced price rack apples

I’m going to explore this chicken situation when I don my other hat–food sourcing volunteer for a local homeless shelter. I know that the shelter’s kitchen would love to get their hands on five whole birds a night, not to mention any other kind of protein, like the array of fresh-made sandwiches and chicken drumsticks in the nearby deli area.

Next time you’re buying a rotisserie bird, check when it was packaged. You may be purchasing garbage (according to the store’s definition).

March 21, 2007 | Posted in Food Safety, Supermarket | Comments closed

Small Step for Waste, Giant Leap for Restaurants

I have to give credit where it’s due. I’ve railed against restaurants for putting profits ahead of waste avoidance and health. I doubted whether any restaurant would lower prices and portion size. Well, T.G.I. Friday’s has done just that with their “Right Portion, Right Price” menu.

Not surprisingly, the March 6 press release illustrates that the initiative is not about waste, but waists. I’m not surprised that there’s no mention of reducing wasted food because I’ve seen this issue fly under the radar for some time. Whether it’s intentional or not, these smaller entrees will cut the amount of food going to dumpsters, especially if the menu becomes popular.

According to T.G.I., consumer feedback was vital. “This is a category issue stemming from consumer demand. The category needs to listen,” said Richard Snead, president and chief executive officer of Carlson Restaurants Worldwide, parent of T.G.I. Friday’s restaurants said in a press release. “We are listening.” Maybe if we all suggest similar campaigns to other restaurants we’ll get more ‘human-sized’ portions.

Granted, this idea is mostly about publicity. It’s also an attempt to make money–T.G.I. is branding the promotion as an excuse to eat out on less popular weeknights. But there’s nothing wrong with making a buck. If smaller entrees are profitable, other restaurants may follow suit.

As for the new meal options, it makes so much sense that you can now get a half rack of ribs. But I’m not so sure about the cedar-seared salmon; I usually prefer my fish without wood. Cedar notwithstanding, kudos to T.G.I. Friday’s.

March 20, 2007 | Posted in Restaurant | Comments closed