University of Iowa Hospitals tackle waste issue

When a media report slamming the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics for the amount of pre-consumer food waste it generates came out in late 2012, Food and Nutrition Services Director Joan Dolezal knew she couldn’t ignore it. In response, Dolezal and her department not only attacked the problem, they also went beyond the complaints in the report to address other waste issues such as polystyrene usage.

The results have been impressive. In a little more than a year, Dolezal says, the department has reduced the amount of pre-consumer waste generated by nearly half, to about 7%. The 2012 report cited the healthcare system for wasting about 12% of the food it prepares for retail sales. Waste on the patient food side was not measured in the report.

In addition, the department has done away with polystyrene packaging in favor of biodegradable items, all of which can be composted. Dolezal also began a composting program that in one year has diverted 77 tons of waste from the landfill.

Finally, the department worked with the dining services department at the University of Iowa to partner with Table To Table, a local organization that distributes food to food banks and crisis centers. That effort has resulted in a threefold increase in the amount of food donated from the healthcare system—more than 2,300 pounds of food in 2013.

“The report really made us stop and take a look at our procedures,” Dolezal says. “We created a focused initiative to reduce our waste. We put together a team within our department and also worked with the university’s sustainability office to come up with a plan.”

The first step was to examine the forecasting methods, as it was apparent from the report that the department was overproducing food. The team started by looking at the rather extensive menu for the system’s seven retail dining facilities and winnowing it of underperforming items. That resulted in a 5% reduction in the total number of items on the menu.

“Then we fine-tuned our menu forecasting,” Dolezal says. “We never want to run out of food, but it was obvious that we were overproducing. By tweaking those numbers, we’re also saving money, since the dollar amount of the food we were wasting has been cut by 40%.”

The Styrofoam issue was a huge one, she admits. “We serve over 10,000 meals a day,” she says. “We’re are open 24/7. That’s a lot of carry out. Our biggest challenge was finding enough biodegradable products that would suit our needs. Fortunately, we were able to find a company that could provide what we needed.”

Dolezal adds that she also revived a reusable mug program to try to cut the amount of disposable cups being used.

The disposable items, along with post-consumer food waste, go into pulpers to be converted to compostable form. The hospital’s hauling company picks up the pulped waste three times a week, something that is costing the department about $38,000 a year.

“One of our challenges is that we have an old central kitchen, which hasn’t been renovated since 1986,” Dolezal explains. “Our storage space is very limited and, as you know, that food waste can start to generate an odor.”

The solution, which she says will be implemented in the next couple of months, will be to build a platform adjacent to the loading docks and install a refrigerator to house the waste. Once that is done, Dolezal will be able to reduce the pickups to once a week.