Students receive real-world lesson in food waste

Students at Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU), New Haven, Connecticut, received a real-world lesson in food waste, thanks to a project spearheaded by food service provider Sodexo, which has U.S. offices in Gaithersburg, Maryland, the university and scale manufacturer Adam Equipment, Oxford, Connecticut.

The “Weigh the Waste” event took place during Sodexo’s WasteLESS week in October and encouraged students on the university’s campus to monitor and minimize their carbon footprint in the dining hall, says Sodexo.

“We’re proud to work alongside our partners in the local community to support Sodexo’s WasteLESS week,” Sodexo General Manager Tony DeLuca says. “Even now, post-event and WasteLESS week, it’s critical that we continue to support and encourage minimizing food waste in any and all ways that we can.”

During the one-week event, students scraped their unwanted food remains into a large container in the dining hall which sat atop Adam Equipment’s GFK 330a, a floor check weighing scale. The GFK features a large 15.7- by 19.7-inch stainless steel platform, allowing Sodexo food service workers to place a container on the platform for convenient weighing of up to 330 pounds of food. The scale remained in place during the entire event, allowing students to see in real-time the increase in weight with each plate.

By the end of the week, the dining hall collected more than 1,700 pounds of food waste, which is being composted.

“I think WasteLESS week was very beneficial for us students because we were able to see how much food really goes to waste,” noted Hailey Ortiz, a first-year student at Southern. “This teaches us to be more mindful and reduce the amount of food that would go to waste so that there is less harm to the environment and less food insecurity for others.”

Prior to the Weigh the Waste event, Sodexo at SCSU had previously worked with Adam Equipment’s weighing equipment. Through Sodexo’s partnership with Leanpath, Adam’s CPWplus platform scale is used to weigh leftover food on the line that is then distributed to the community through the Food Recovery Network. During the 2021-22 academic year, Sodexo and Southern’s Office of Sustainability saved over 8,456 pounds of food from the landfill and donated it to local non-profits.

“Food waste is a serious problem worldwide and Adam is happy to play a role in helping to reduce it and spread awareness at the local level,” said Adam Equipment General Manager Brian Thomas says.

Sodexo North America is focused on preventing all forms of waste through changes in processes, consumer education and collaboration with external partners. Sodexo aims to follow the principles of the circular economy to ensure all waste has a beneficial use and by promoting reuse, recycling and composting to eliminate avoidable waste going to landfills.