Tracking and Diverting All-You-Can-Eat Cafeteria Food Waste and Loss from an Urban Public University in Central Virginia

Commodities

Practices

This project seeks funding to transform Virginia Commonwealth
University’s (VCU) campus food system by reducing unnecessary
food waste with three objectives. VCU is a large urban university
composed of twenty one higher education units  including a
world renowned liberal arts campus, a medical campus and
hospital, while participating in Division I NCAA athletics. VCU
is also embedded into the fabric of an urban environment that
encompasses a diverse range of socioeconomic backgrounds and
cultural interactions. Currently, VCU has little capacity to
track or reduce food waste beyond internal efforts by our food
service partner, Aramark. An alliance of senior administrators,
VCU Sustainability, and faculty members aim to change this
reality in line with modern sustainable food management practice
(US EPA). Initial efforts will focus on VCU’s central
all-you-can-eat cafeteria before eventually expanding our
innovations to the hospital system cafeterias and to VCU
Athletics. Efforts will proceed in a staggered and controlled
rollout taking place over the course of the funded three years,
but with the intention to to expand to other parts of VCU beyond
the funded timeline. 

The first objective is to develop and implement an innovative
system to track both edible and inedible institutional food
service pre-consumer and post-consumer food waste (Natural
Resources Defense Council, 2017) at VCU’s central all-you-can-eat
cafeteria. Such a system can better inform purchasing and food
preparation decisions by VCU Dining (i.e., source reduction),
characterize consumer habits (towards behavioral change) and
support the development of educational initiatives towards both
cafeteria and customers. Further, characterization of post
consumer waste streams will inform overall human and
environmental health impacts.

The second objective is to divert unprepared and unserved
pre-consumer food portions from the cafeteria to a network of
decentralized, anonymous SMART community refrigerators on and
off-campus. These include the VCU campus food pantry network
(“Ram Pantry”). This objective will enhance the existing sensor
system created for the network of similar on-campus, dry goods
food pantries (“Little Ram Pantries”). The next-generation SMART
systems include inward-facing cameras linked to a website,
allowing for monitoring of inventory and usage. This sensor data
will allow the research team to optimize food diversion to Ram
Pantry and off-campus partners. These off-campus partners include
RVACommunity Fridges (an emerging decentralized network of mutual
aid fridges and dry-goods pantries scattered across the greater
Richmond region) and five VCU affiliated older adult living
facilities.

The third objective reduces food waste through evaluation,
education, training, and outreach. Tasks include developing an
interactive dashboard, a virtual website for real-time waste
statistics, conducting portion adjustment trials, and creating
best practice documents based on evaluations. This objective
employs focus groups with food waste recipients, performs
geospatial analysis of pantry sensor data, will host a workshop
for Virginia higher education institutions and provide for
educational resources that can be adopted broadly. By fostering
sustainability and engaging the on and off campus community, VCU
can become a national leader in food waste reduction!

Objective 1: Implementing Waste Tracking System

Task 1.1: Tracking Food Preparation and Serving Waste

• Install high-precision digital scales for
  waste measurement and data collection in Shafer Dining Hall.

Task 1.2: Development and Evaluation of Automated Plate Waste
Tracking System

• Subtask 1.2.1: Design and Development Phase
  • Develop Plate Waste Tracking (PWT) units
    with advanced technologies for waste measurement.
  • Tag dining plates with Radio Frequency
    Identification (RFID)/Near-field communication (NFC) for
    tracking.
  • Implement high-resolution cameras and
    machine learning models for portion size estimation.
  • Assemble and test prototype devices.
• Subtask 1.2.2: Deployment and Evaluation Phase
  • Pilot implementation of PWT units at
    select stations.
  • Train graduate students for manual
    measurement and recording.
  • Monitor data integrity and system
    performance.

Task 1.3: Large-Scale Data Collection and Analysis

• Gather comprehensive data across Shafer
  service areas.
• Correlate waste data with consumer metrics and
  environmental conditions.
• Generate detailed reports on food waste by
  type and purchase origins.

Objective 2: Establishing a Food Diversion System

Task 2.1: Food Waste Diversion with Goodr and Ram Fridges

• Divert unprepared or unserved pre-consumer
  food portions from Shafer to a decentralized network of campus
  sensor-enabled food pantry refrigerators (Ram Fridges). In some
  cases, Objective 1 will assist both in diverting foods to the
  refrigerators but also in right-sizing portions to reduce the
  potential for food waste in the long-term. 

Task 2.2: Divert Food to RVA Community Fridges

• Expand diversion efforts from Task 2.1 to
  support the off campus RVACommunity Fridge network.
• Provide a refrigerated trailer hitch and
  electrical upgrade for RVACommunity Fridge.
• Stipend for RVACommunity Fridge’s unofficial
  manager and honorariums for volunteers.

Task 2.3: Divert Food to Older Adult Living Facilities

• Expand diversion efforts from Task 2.1 to
  support VCU affiliated older adult living facilities.
• Coordinate with Gerontology faculty at VCU for
  minor assistance.

Task 2.4: Sensor Improvements

• Improve stability and add inward-facing
  cameras to the sensor system for real-time inventory and usage
  analysis.

Objective 3: Reducing Food Waste through Evaluation,
Education, Training, and Outreach

Task 3.1: Dashboard Development and Implementation 

• Develop and install an interactive dashboard
  for real-time waste statistics.
• Create a virtual dashboard and website
  featuring waste data, success stories, and educational resources.

Task 3.2: Portion Adjustment Trial 

• Experiment with adjusting meal portion sizes
  based on historical data and immediate feedback.
• Collect and analyze data on waste quantities.

Task 3.3: Evaluation of Behavior Changes Interventions

• Evaluate results from dashboard and portion
  adjustment trials.
• Create best practice documents for VCU Dining
  and other institutions.

Task 3.4: Focus Groups of Diverted Food Waste Recipients

• Conduct focus groups to assess the
  effectiveness and impact of food diversion programs.

Task 3.5: Geospatial Analysis of Food Pantry Sensor Data

• Perform geospatial analysis of pantry sensor
  data to optimize placement and operation.

Task 3.6: Campus Food Waste Workshop for Virginia Higher
Education Institutions 

• Organize a workshop for staff and faculty from
  other Virginia institutions to share lessons learned.

Task 3.7: Presentation at Practitioner and Scholarly
Conferences and Open Access Research Publication 

• Present findings at conferences and publish
  research in open access journals.

Task 3.8: Development of Waste Reduction Educational Materials
and Communication Strategies

• Create and implement training modules for VCU
  Dining staff to promote waste reduction behaviors among customers
• Work with VCU faculty to integrate food waste
  reduction and sustainability topics into existing course
  curricula

Task 3.9: Formation of Community Advisory Group 

• Establish a community advisory group to
  coordinate off-campus food diversion.