Addressing Food Waste in Hospitality and Food Service
Eating at a Meeting Podcast Episode #173
On the Global Food Waste Team
As the Senior Program Officer for World Wildlife Fund’s Global Food Waste Team, Samantha Kenny works with hospitality and food service businesses to change the standard ways of doing business when planning events (like forecasting) to right-size food production and better serve guests.
Listen as Tracy and Samantha talk about who is responsible for curbing food waste at events and the ways food waste be addressed at meetings and events.
Samantha Kenny
Samantha Kenny is a Senior Program Officer with World Wildlife Fund’s global food waste team. She focuses on strategies for hospitality and food service businesses to address food waste.
What do safe, sustainable, and inclusive food and beverage experiences look like to you?
The context of food and beverage is changing, and people want to see their values represented in the meals they eat and the purchases they make. Safe, sustainable, and inclusive food and beverage rely on critical operations to maintain food safety and quality, an understanding of the value and impact of the food being served, and a connection to neighbor food system stakeholders to maximize what’s available locally.
Do you have an example of a situation that negatively affected you and other individuals or groups’ food and beverage experience?
Related to food waste, the balance is always between running out of food or having too much.
What is a best practice you use/or have seen to create safe, sustainable, and inclusive F&B experiences?
Clear labeling of menu items with signage to guide consumption.
What do you wish people knew about what you do?
The last thing we want is for an individual to eat more or less than they’re interested in eating for the purpose of avoiding food waste. We want to change standard ways of doing business, and formalize previously less formal aspects of event planning (like forecasting), to right-size food production and better serve guests.
Just for fun…What are your favorite food and drink?
I’m so bad at picking favorites! Maybe sparkling water and chocolate!
Links:
Connect with Samantha: Website | LinkedIn
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