Bon Appetit Employees take on the Scrap Bucket Challenge

The idea of dumping a bucket full of food scraps over your head isn’t very appealing, but staff at Bon Appetit Management Co. in Palo Alto, Calif., are doing exactly that, in order to raise awareness about food waste.

It’s called the Scrap Bucket Challenge, and the company believes it could become an effective way to discuss food waste. Similar to the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge that was popular a few months back, those who take part in the Scrap Bucket Challenge film themselves dumping a bucket of food scraps over their head. They then nominate a colleague or friend, or then is expected to take the challenge or donate to a food-focused charity.

Bon Appetit’s waste specialist, Claire Cummings, says the Scrap Bucket Challenge began in October 2014 at the Zero Food Waste Forum, an annual food waste awareness event hosted by EndFoodWaste.org.

Cummings says she and her fellow co-workers on Bon Appetite’s corporate team were surprised about what they had thrown away. “Very rarely do we give a good look at what we are throwing out,” she says. “The cool thing about the Scrap Bucket Challenge is that it forces you to take a good look at what you are throwing away—and then dump it on your head.”

The Scrap Bucket Challenge is the latest attempt by Bon Appetit to address food waste. Its Low Carbon Diet program has been in place since 2005. Low Carbon Diet monitors waste in Bon Appetit kitchens and educates guests about food waste, an effort that led the company to reduce food waste in its cafes by 30 percent by April 2009.

Cummings says as the challenge gains traction, it could eventually become another component that Bon Appetit uses to educate students at its campus cafes.

“We do a lot of from-scratch, snout to tail cooking—really fully utilizing the products in our kitchen,” she says. “But at the end of the day, if our guests put something on their plate and throw it out, that’s not sustainable.”

According to Cummings, Bon Appetit isn’t the only organization to use the Scrap Bucket Challenge.  She says the Food Recovery Network, an organization that encourages universities to donate unused food to local food banks, also uses the campaign as a tool to educate students about food waste on campus.