Though awareness of sustainability and food waste have become more mainstream in the last 10 years, a great deal of education and systematic change need to happen to see faster progress in that area, said panelists during a New York City Food Waste Fair session, Wednesday.
“Sustainability has been on and off trends lists for a good part of the last decade,” said Claire Sprouse, owner of Hunky Dory, a bar in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. “But I’ve been personally waiting for the moment where it stops becoming a trend and becomes a normal practice.”
Sprouse believes that in order to make real change, it’s important for consumers, business owners, and the government to realize that everyone is a stakeholder in sustainability.
“There needs to be a shift in mentality of who is actually responsible for what,” she said.
JJ Johnson, chef and founder of Fieldtrip, which has three locations in the NYC area, believes that taking ownership in sustainability and reducing food waste should start as early as possible.
“I think it should be taught in schools,” he said. “From a young age. Education is essential.”
Johnson also added that incentives for restaurants who are working towards or have achieved zero waste should be considered.
Some believe that a more collaborative effort between individuals and local government could be beneficial.
“We’re all making individual, sometimes costly changes, but it’s a personal and financial sacrifice,” said Naama Tamir, owner of Lighthouse, a restaurant in Willamsburg, Brooklyn. “In order to see change, we need to see absolute systematic change. Having the city work with us to come up with a real system that works will allow so many of us to do better.”
Halley Chambers, director of The Oberon Group, a small hospitality company based in Brooklyn, suggested that restaurants and businesses trying to lower their food waste should be given more funding to achieve that goal, which in turn, can help their bottom line.
For example, she spoke about how being able to financially invest in a compost machine has benefited the company long term.
“The machine felt like a really big expense,” she said. “But once we did it, it was worth it. Our ability to compost helped reduce our trash bill significantly.”
The Impact of the Pandemic
Reflecting on how COVID-19 changed Lighthouse, Tamir said, “One thing we did was shrink our menu. It made more sense with a smaller staff and less ability to see into the future.”
She noted that though the past year was much more challenging, it gave the business the opportunity to reevaluate what it was doing and see what worked and what didn’t.
The Oberon Group also did some pivoting during the last year. Since the pandemic brought the company’s catering business to a complete standstill, Oberon began offering direct-to-consumer home delivery. Unfortunately, this decision set back the company’s zero waste efforts.
“We had never used plastic before, but when the city stopped composting, we made the decision to switch to plastic packaging,” Chambers explained.
Though using plastic wasn’t idea for Chambers, she uses this as an example of how sustainability isn’t a single, attainable goal. “There is no end state of zero waste,” she said. “We need people to realize that it’s a constantly evolving movement.”
Taking on the Challenge
Though reaching zero or near zero waste can take a lot of time and investment from restaurants, all the panelists agreed that it’s a worthwhile endeavor.
“For me, the biggest positive impact of reducing food waste was that it created a culture that our staff really feels like they’re working towards something greater,” said Tamir. “We have staff that believe in their work and understand why we do this, and they go home and tell their family and friends. We have great staff retention. I don’t think we’d have that if they didn’t believe in our mission.”
Sprouse emphasized that approaching food waste is not a restraint or limitation, but rather an opportunity. “Reducing food waste inspires our menus. We’ve created so many unique combinations from things that would have normally gone in the garbage.”
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Image: NYC Food Waste Fair