Stale bread. A surplus of scrambled eggs. Unused broccoli stems.
Much of the detritus regularly carted from Yale’s dining hall kitchens doesn’t end up in the landfill — instead, it is taken to a compost facility in Southington, Connecticut that converts organic matter into renewable energy.
But Yale Hospitality wants to further its sustainability efforts by reducing the amount of food waste coming out of its kitchens in the first place.
New technology powered by artificial intelligence (AI) will sort and analyze the food castoffs in all 14 residential dining hall kitchens this fall, providing staff with valuable insights into how they might reduce waste from food prep, spoilage, and overproduction.
“The more our staff is aware of what they’re throwing away, and the better the job we do purchasing, the more we can reduce our waste,” said Daniel Flynn, director of asset renewal and planned projects at Yale Hospitality. “It’s just the right thing to do.”
Yale Hospitality operates 23 residential and retail dining operations across campus. The residential dining halls alone serve some 12,000 meals daily during the school year, or more than two million meals annually.
Nationally, an estimated 30 to 40% of the food supply is wasted, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And it’s not only the food itself that goes to waste, but the land, water, labor, and energy used to produce it. Food waste is linked to roughly 8% of global emissions. At Yale, food purchases currently account for about 12,500 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, according to the Office of Sustainability.
Flynn began testing the new AI technology in March, and members of the hospitality staff have gradually been learning how to use it ever since.
Every kitchen prep area has a wall-mounted computer monitor with a downward-focused camera and a compost container resting on a scale beneath it. A frame that fits around the scale has a ramp so that staff can easily roll the compost bins on and off.
“The bin comes off and goes right outside,” Flynn said. “No lifting required.”
With the new system, when chefs or culinary staff have food trimmings, prep waste, or outdated food items, they dump them into the compost container. The monitor takes a photo of the waste and records its weight. The AI technology recognizes the food item, but also prompts the staff member to hit the appropriate icon to identify what kind of waste it is (prep, over-production, spoilage, etc.) and whether it’s from breakfast, lunch, or dinner.
Pre-loaded pricing will calculate the cost of the food wasted, one of many data points that will be captured in weekly food-waste reports. The reports will show food waste by meal period and by food product, allowing chefs to see, for example, what the highest wasted item was for any given lunch period.
“With this information, our chefs can write menus that produce minimal waste and can better evaluate our purchasing specifications,” Flynn said.
Say, for example, that the reports show that the kitchens only got a 60% yield out of the whole headless salmon they purchased for a meal served in all the dining halls. The rest, including the trimmings from the fish, ended up in the compost bins.
“Our chef who writes the menus for the entire campus can look at the pictures in the reports and see that, wow, the staff is cutting a lot off the fish bellies,” Flynn said. “That could be a training opportunity. Or maybe we switch to a different fish, something that’s a smaller size or has less belly.”
Or perhaps it’s trimmings from broccoli that stand out in the reports.
“The chef can make some decisions — maybe the day after we have stir-fried chicken and broccoli, we use the broccoli trimmings and have cream of broccoli soup,” Flynn said. “Or maybe we buy broccoli florets that we don’t have to cut up — maybe that’s a better practice.”
The food waste initiative is the latest step in Yale Hospitality’s broader sustainability efforts, which include local and regional sourcing of food, Energy Star-approved kitchen equipment, increased use of produce, and decreased use of animal protein.
“Yale Hospitality is a longtime leader in sustainable cuisine,” said Amber Garrard, director of the Yale Office of Sustainability. “We are excited to see how this technology can bring greater attention to the challenge of food waste and ensure that we are using our resources as responsibly as we can.”
The goal is to cut food waste by 20% this year and 30% next year. Flynn has already seen what’s possible. In April, a month after the technology was put into place on a limited basis, the amount of waste trucked to the compost facility dropped significantly compared to previous Aprils.
The next step is introducing the technology to the students eating in the dining halls.
“We plan to record the amount of food students are taking and not eating,” Flynn said. “The students are very passionate when it comes to sustainability, and we are certain they will have a positive reaction to the program.”
