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FOOD WASTELAND: A LOCAL STORY OF EXCESSNorth Texas is throwing away a deplorable amount of food. Why is it happening, and what can be done to prevent it?| by Jennifer Casseday-Blair | photography by Alex Lepe |

Currently in the U.S., 40 percent of our food supply ends up in the garbage. One of the biggest issues in agriculture today is how to feed the 9 billion people on this planet by 2050. It is estimated that we would need to grow 60 percent more food than we cur-rently produce.

But there’s more to it than just running out of food. The methane gas generated from the food waste in landfills is 20 to 25 times more potent than CO2. Another envi-ronmental consideration is the high carbon footprint yielded when the waste is picked

up and hauled to the landfill. The cost of disposal makes a significant impact on busi-nesses. In all, it is estimated that $165 billion is squandered each year on perfectly edible food that goes uneaten.

Larger entities such as restaurants, su-permarkets, hospitals, schools and produce dealers are major contributors to the food waste dilemma. We talked to a North Texas restaurant owner and a grocery store owner about creative ways in which they work to decrease waste.

Local sustainability advocates are paying

attention and making a plan of action. Sev-eral North Texas organizations are working to make it easier for vendors to donate food by acting as middlemen between supermar-kets, hotels or restaurants and food provid-ers like shelters and food pantries. Local food banks are also taking action by part-nering with hundreds of grocery stores for weekly pick-ups that feed the nearly 300,000 people in this city that live in food insecure households.

Eliminating food waste begins with pre-vention. Living in a reactive society, it’s sel-dom that things really change until the crisis is upon us, including our cavalier attitudes about food. The main question becomes, Why can’t we or won’t we simply waste less?

Fare Code The City of Fort Worth’s Consumer Health division inspects restau-

A man stops by his Fort Worth grocery store deli counter to pick up a late dinner for his family. As the store employee puts the eighth piece of chicken in the box, she continues to add more. As he alerts her of his original order, she lets him know that they have to throw everything out that night anyway, so she is go-ing to give him a few extra pieces. The man takes his bag of pre-pared dishes, looks down at the row of half-empty serving bowls of salads, meats and casseroles and thinks, What a waste.

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rants and other food establishments to keep Fort Worth residents safe from food-borne diseases.

Many are under the misconception that food donation goes against health regula-tions. That isn’t the case. Under Texas Food Establishments Rule 228.83, food donation is permissible with certain guidelines.

Wendy Turpin, supervisor with the City of Fort Worth Code Compliance Depart-ment, says, “Texas Food Establishment Rules allow for the donation of food if you donate in a safe manner to a recipient that can serve it safely. The Emerson Good Sa-maritan Food Donation Act is similar to the Good Samaritan law where people are legally protected if they are helping some-one in good faith.”

Foods that have been previously served to a consumer may not be donated. That would include food left on the plates of restaurant patrons or items that have been shared in a buffet.

The biggest hurdle food establishments face when wanting to donate food is the requirement of time/temperature monitor-ing. Food must have been kept at or above 135 degrees during hot holding and service and refrigerated to meet time and tempera-ture requirements. The food donor must substantiate that the food recipient has the facilities to meet the transportation, storage and reheating requirements. At the time of donation, the food must be at or below 41 degrees and protected from contamination.

“There isn’t a good vehicle for getting the food from the restaurant to the donation outlet. Normally the nonprofits don’t have the resources to go and pick up the food. Depending on the food, you may need re-frigerated trucks, which are very expen-sive,” Turpin says.

In addition, donated foods require labels with the name and source of the food and the date of preparation. Dented canned foods or packaged foods without the man-ufacturer’s complete labeling cannot be donated. Also foods that are considered distressed, such as items that have been exposed to fire, flooding, excessive heat, smoke, radiation, environmental contami-nation or prolonged storage can’t be donat-ed for consumption.

So then the question becomes, If it’s legal, why aren’t more establishments donating rather than filling the dumpster out back? One reason for this is that many vendors don’t want to be liable if the food they pro-vide gets someone sick. Giving away their leftovers isn’t worth the risk in their eyes. Another reason is logistics. There may not be adequate space to store the leftover food while waiting for agencies to pick it up.

In the Market The percentage of waste at supermarkets is staggering. One major factor is the assumption that customers are more likely to buy produce or items in a display case if it is fully stocked. That leads to an excess of meats and prepared dishes and the damaging of items on the bottom layer of produce pyramids.

“Prepared foods in the cases are all la-beled. Store employees must keep track of how long the food has been out or opened. Once it reaches a certain date, it must be discarded,” Turpin says.

Kurt Jaeger, owner of City Market in Burleson, has been in the grocery store business for 41 years. He works hard to reduce food waste in his store and has creative methods for doing so. “There are ways to make the meat and seafood case look fuller, like moving the racks up. My philosophy is that I’d rather have it fresh than overstocked.”

Store smorgasbords of prepared dishes

Food packaging contains valuable information including whether or not the food item is still safe to eat. Here are help-ful definitions to allow consumers to better understand food label terminology.

OPEN DATING: This allows the store to determine how long to display the product for sale and uses a calendar date as opposed to a code. Open dates are found primarily on perishable foods such as dairy or meat products.

CLOSED DATING: Also referred to as coded dating, these are packing num-bers used by the manufacturer and are often found on shelf-stable products such as canned or boxed foods.

SELL BY: This tells the store the last day they can sell that

specific product. As a consumer, this date represents the last day the product should be bought from the store.

BEST IF USED BY: Not technically a safety-related date, this term refers to when the consumer should prepare the food for optimal flavor or quality.

USE BY: This is the last date recom-mended for use of product according to the manufacturer.

In addition to utilizing the above terms, to reduce the risk of food poisoning, it is important to properly store and handle food items. Separating raw from ready-to-eat foods, cooking foods at proper tempera-tures and refrigerat-ing or freezing foods promptly are other factors to take into account.

Understanding Food Labels

Commercial–sized restaurant freezers are filled with food that will often go to waste.

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FOOD INSECURE

HOUSEHOLDSTarrant Area Food Bank

By the Numbers

Number of Counties Served

1982The Tarrant Area

Food Bank has been in business since

the percentage of households reporting choosing between pay-ing for food and paying for medi-

cine or medical care at least once in the past 12 months; 35 percent

face this choice every month.

15%of client households

have no income

percent of house-holds do not have access to a place to preserve fresh food such as a refrigerator

78Looking at annual income

as a percentage of the poverty level,

percent of client households fall at or below 100 percent

of the poverty level.

300partner agencies helping

service food insecure households

59%of households report choosing between pay-ing for food and paying their rent or mortgage at least once in the past 12 months; 36 percent face this choice every month.

NINEpercent of households do not have cooking facilities such as a stove or hot plate

percent have annual incomes of $1 to $10,000

Fort Worth, Texas: The City’s Magazine 57

often don’t get completely consumed be-fore being tossed. It is impossible to predict the weekly tastes of shoppers.

Jaeger takes food safety seriously. “We monitor our temps three times a day. Our meats are kept at a certain temperature, and items like our salads get four days be-fore we have to throw them out.”

Another expectation of customers is that retailers offer perfect-looking pro-duce. This means that even if the quality isn’t compromised, farms avoid selling the so-called “B” stock to supermarkets. If some of this produce does make it to the store floor, it is usually taken out of stock.

Sell-by dates can be misleading. Most of the public doesn’t understand the dif-ference between expiration, sell-by, use-by and best-by dates (see sidebar for defini-tions of these terms). Sellers and consumers assume that the food items are no longer good after these dates, but most foods are in fact good long after the sell-by date. Because stores fear that patrons will not buy the food or think the store is carrying bad product, these items are pulled out of stock sometimes days be-fore the sell-by date.

While Jaeger donates certain food from the City Market, there are some things he isn’t comfort-able giving away. “I try not to do-nate items that are out of date or close to expiration. I feel like ev-eryone deserves something fresh. Just because somebody doesn’t have a job doesn’t mean they want food that’s substandard. I also won’t take a chance on donating items that are egg or mayo based.”

Damaged product packaging is another way in which food gets wasted. Even if the food hasn’t been compromised, a store won’t put out a dented box of Fruity Peb-bles. Unpopular or promotional items are also often tossed.

So while it is true that supermarkets could definitely be doing more to avoid waste, much of the problem is with the public’s picky buying trends. Things might

change if consumers were willing to eat a banana with a few brown spots or yogurt after the sell-by date.

Dinner Is Served Cafeterias and buf-fets, including those at hospitals, schools and restaurants, have serious plate waste issues. Because consumers can fill multiple plates, often with the option to refill in-definitely, cafeterias and buffet restaurants must leave large amounts of food sitting out all day. Once that food has been put out, it can’t be donated to a food bank for health reasons.

A small minority of college and business cafeterias is working on a solution by elimi-nating trays. This limits the amount of food they can take and has proved successful with a decrease of waste by 25 – 30 percent.

Something as simple as switching the size of plates in a restaurant can make an enormous difference. In recent years, plates on which food is served have grown big-ger. The Delboeuf Illusion explains why a serving size would appear smaller when more white space surrounds the food on the plate. If restaurants would serve smaller portions on smaller plates, they could create less kitchen and plate waste, and customers don’t feel cheated about the portion size.

Jerrett Joslin, executive chef of The Wild Mushroom Steak House and the Vintage

Grill and Car Museum, says that plating is all about perception. “We control portion sizes so people don’t leave a lot on the plate. It’s true that the same thing that fits on a big plate can also fit in a smaller bowl, but we tend to stick with 10-inch rounds or squares. That’s pretty standard. We may use dif-ferent sized glasses to provide the illusion of more,” Joslin says.

Chef Eric Hunter of the Fire Oak Grill caters his menu around sea-sonally and locally grown ingredi-ents. He shares why his restaurant has so little waste. “Everything we use can also be used for something

else. For instance, the trim from our fish dishes goes into the fish tacos. Additionally, we don’t put too much food on the plate. We want our guests to try multiple items during their visit.”

Fast food restaurants are food waste of-fenders too. Due to managers attempting to anticipate changing consumer demand and ensuring that they are never out of an item, they order more food than space will allow. Constantly preparing food items that are only retained for brief stints of time, many food items will be tossed before reaching

Top: Shelves of food at the Tarrant Area Food Bank. Below:

Volunteers sort donated produce at the Tarrant Area Food Bank.

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