Dining Out on “Purposeful Plates”

Policy 5.1.6: Develop a communications campaign with community partners to promote waste reduction and encourage behavior change.

In early 2019, members of the Douglas County Food Policy Council (DCFPC) Goal 5 working group, which focuses on eliminating food waste through reduction, recovery, and diversion, partnered with Dr. Susan Harvey from The University of Kansas (KU) Department of Health, Sports, and Exercise Science (HSES) and her spring semester undergraduate students to examine food waste behavior. The study included three focus areas:  food waste on farms, consumer food waste, and food waste in the food service industry.

After reviewing the reports, Dr. Harvey, in consultation with chef and restaurant owner Rick Martin, discovered untapped opportunities to reduce waste among local restaurants. In August 2019, members of Goal 5 presented this opportunity to a group of stakeholders which included representatives from the Lawrence Restaurant Association (LRA), Just Food, and Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health (LDCHealth) who agreed to explore the creation of a food waste toolkit. The "toolkit" was to include facts about food waste impacts and training tools for employees, resources for safely diverting excess food to higher uses, and branded marketing materials to convey efforts and tips to customers.

Led by Dr. Harvey that fall, KU HSES graduate students gathered input from members of the LRA to help identify the existing challenges around food waste and what gaps exist in awareness, and resources and tools to address them. The findings were presented to the stakeholder group in January of 2020. Among needed resources identified were educational resources for staff in regards to composting and food donation, comprehension of the liability and tax incentives associated with food donation, and messaging geared to customers regarding food waste and food insecurity. Also noted was a desire to increase access to composting programs available to Lawrence restaurants. LDCHealth provided funding to continue the project through a Kansas Department of Health and Environment Chronic Disease Risk Reduction grant and a graphic designer was hired to help create the branding and materials for the toolkit. The program was named Purposeful Plates and its goal would be to educate restaurant owners and staff on ways to both decrease food waste and increase food donation.

By March 2020, a pilot was to be implemented among LRA member businesses. However, as the food service industry was faced with unprecedented challenges due to COVID-19, the Purposeful Plates pilot was brought to a halt without a clear timeline to resume. However, Goal 5 did not want to completely discard the potential of the program. In spring 2022, members renewed conversations with local business, Restaurant Pub and Games (RPG), to implement a smaller scale mini-pilot and over a 3-week period were able to gather valuable information and feedback in which to implement a larger scale pilot. RPG General Manager, Birdie Albrecht notes “While we were aware of the glaring issue of food waste in this industry, it was illuminating to be able to quantify the amounts produced both by our kitchen as well as the customer… [Staff] now ask themselves thoughtful questions before throwing anything away: Can this be donated? Would a member of staff like to take this home?” As a result of participating in the mini-pilot, RPG also decided to contract with Food Cycle KC to compost all kitchen and dining food waste.

Based on the success with RPG and the ongoing support of the DCFPC, Dr. Susan Harvey and Professor of Economics, Dr. Dietrich Earnhart, also a Goal 5 member, secured funds from KU to proceed with developing and implementing a pilot that would involve 10 restaurants, to begin during the 2022-2023 academic year.

Contributors: Tyler Lindquist, Chair, DCFPC. Tyler has served on the Food Policy Council since 2019, including Chair of Goal 5 from 2020-2021, and Chair of the full Council since 2021. Tyler was certified as a “Local Food Leader” from Iowa State University in 2021.