Restaurants Eliminating & Diverting Uneaten food through Composting & Education
Phoenix generates 270,000 tons of food waste annually. Project REDUCE restaurants are doing something about that. Project REDUCE is the City’s first program dedicated to supporting restaurants reduce food loss and waste.
Phase One: Holisitic Approach The first phase of restaurants diverted 31,000 pounds of food from the landfill by preventing waste, donating surplus food, and composting food scraps.
Phase Two: Emphasis on Prevention To build on the successes of phase one restaurants in food waste prevention, the City issued a microgrant program offering restaurants up to $2,000 to implement simple, convenient, and innovative food waste prevention solutions.
The Office of Environmental Programs provided micro-grants to four local restaurants in the Downtown Core area to support piloting simple, convenient, and innovative food waste prevention solutions. See program statistics below.
Previously, the City worked with nine restaurants and four key partners to comprehensively eliminate food waste through prevention, rescue, and composting measures through a 10-week program. The goal was to stop food from ending up in landfills by helping restaurants prevent waste, donate surplus food, and compost scraps.
Over the course of the pilot, the participating restaurants located on Roosevelt Row and Historic Grand Avenue diverted 31,000 pounds of food waste from the landfill!
Restaurants met with local chef Chris Lenza, National Executive Chef of the Cafe Bon Appetit Wellness Team, to receive hands-on guidance and training on food waste prevention strategies that are specific to each restaurant's unique needs.
Participating restaurants utilized Waste Not's free MealConnect app to donate surplus food throughout the eight week pilot. Restaurants used MealConnect to pair food donations with volunteer drivers and a recipient agency. For more information on signing up for MealConnect, please visit mealconnect.org/donate.
Each restaurant was provided with free compost collection services from Reycled City for the full 10-week challenge period.
For restaurants that were interested, the City of Phoenix conducted waste audits and provided information about how much waste are they generated and diverted at the beginning and end of the pilot to track progress.
Email: kailey.mullis@phoenix.gov
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