Foods

MnTAP SOURCE, Fall 1998 Issue, Volume 13, Number 4
Minnesota Technical Assistance Program, University of Minnesota

Donate excess or damaged food products. Donating food increases community well being and promotes corporate responsibility. It also can improve community and employee morale.

Celebrate Success: Supervalu, Inc., a supplier of grocery products to more than 255 supermarkets in Minnesota, Wisconsin and South Dakota, arranges for damaged products (canned goods, dry grocery items and general merchandise) to be returned to the Supervalu warehouse by Supervalu trucks. Suppliers of those products can choose from six disposal methods. The cheapest and most frequently chosen option is donating the product to food banks. In 1997, more than 2.4 million pieces of product were donated to Second Harvest Food Banks, with a gross value of over $3 million. Previously, 90 to 95 percent of this product would have been thrown away. Supervalu operates their program on a break-even basis and chooses not to take advantage of any potential tax deduction.

Site Visit Story: A city wastewater treatment operator called MnTAP and suggested that a meat processor on their system could use help reducing their waste. The company's biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) and total suspended solids (TSS) levels fluctuated, causing problems for wastewater treatment. Food by-products were entering the company's wastewater as a result of cleaning.

Prevention tip: MnTAP staff met with the meat processor and discovered that while cleaning was the direct cause of the problem, the root of the problem was that product ended up on the floor and in the drains as a result of production. MnTAP staff suggested that the company initiate a waste reduction team—made up of production staff—to come up with workable solutions to their waste problems. The company plans to form teams and MnTAP will start them off with training on team building and on reducing wastewater loading.

To request that a staff person come out and visit your company to offer customized suggestions for waste reduction and management, call MnTAP at 612/627-4646.

Tips:

• If your organization provides food service, examine ordering techniques and look at better stock techniques to minimize excess.
• Donate excess food. Contact the Minnesota Food Bank Network at 612/486-9860.
• Remember that tax benefits for donating food can be twice the cost of the food donated.
• Support sustainable agricultural practices by purchasing organic food whenever possible.
• Buy food grown locally/regionally to minimize pollution from transportation.
• Minimize spills and leaks on food production lines to prevent raw materials from becoming waste.
• Dedicate mixing lines to certain products to reduce change-over cleanups.
• Consider using food by-products as animal feed.