Bon Appetit - Management Company

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Palo Alto, Calif., (February 08, 2010) - Bon Appétit Management Company, the nation’s leader in sustainable dining services, has kicked off a comprehensive Food Waste Reduction campaign in all cafés nationwide. For 12 weeks, Bon Appétit locations around the country will work to actively reduce the amount of food wasted during meal preparations.  The program seeks to educate Bon Appétit customers by demonstrating how much food goes to waste during a typical meal. The chefs will measure overall food waste daily and then work to reduce that figure for every following week of the campaign. The food waste campaign is part of Bon Appétit’s Low Carbon Diet initiative, the first program of its kind that connects food to global warming.

“At Bon Appétit Management Company, we consistently look for ways to raise the bar in sustainable dining,” said Fedele Bauccio, CEO. “A recent study¹ suggests that Americans throw away 50% more food today than they did back in 1974, and all of that food sits in landfills, emitting harmful methane gases. We serve over 100 million meals a year, and feel a responsibility to reduce our contribution to this problem by looking for ways to produce less food waste in our facilities overall.”

Bon Appétit has the distinct advantage of a roster of skilled and dedicated chefs that cook from scratch every day. These talented chefs carefully manage their menus and food resources, using what is on hand to create unique menu items including soups and stocks, thereby ensuring minimal food waste. To date, Bon Appétit Management Company has reduced food waste generated in its cafes by 20% and hopes to advance this figure via best-practice measures undertaken in cafés around the country during this campaign including:

1. Educating chefs and kitchen staff on the negative environmental impact of food waste
2. Distributing educational tools to kitchen staff on proper portioning and prepping techniques
3. A weekly waste monitoring program in all kitchens that includes weighing and measuring food scraps in the kitchens as well as as dishes are returned by customers in the café 
   

Currently, more than half of the eligible cafes Bon Appétit serves are trayless, a popular way to reduce waste pioneered by Bon Appétit in 2005. Trayless dining encourages consumers to eat mindfully and to take less food.

Bon Appétit’s Waste Reduction Campaign is part of the company’s ongoing Low Carbon Diet program, an effort to reduce the carbon impact of Bon Appétit operations by 25% by this summer. So far, the company has achieved a weekly reduction in CO2 equivalent emissions between 40 and 50 tons in 2009.

Bon Appétit will continue to monitor the waste reduction efforts in all 400+ cafés around the country through April and then announce the findings.

 

About Bon Appétit Management Company:

Bon Appétit Management Company (www.bamco.com) is an onsite restaurant company offering full food service management to corporations, universities and specialty venues. Bon Appétit is committed to sourcing sustainable, local foods for all cafés throughout the country. A pioneer in environmentally sound sourcing policies, Bon Appétit has developed programs addressing local purchasing, the overuse of antibiotics, sustainable seafood, cage-free eggs, and most recently, the connection between food and climate change. The company has received numerous awards for its work from organizations like the National Resources Defense Council, Seafood Choices Alliance, The Humane Society of the United States, and Food Alliance. Based in Palo Alto, CA, Bon Appétit has more than 400 cafés in 29 states, including eBay, American University and the Getty Center.