Google recognizes food waste is a problem, both environmentally and economically-speaking. That’s why for the past 5 years, the chefs that work in the kitchen at Google’s headquarters have been measuring the exact amount of food being wasted each day by placing all leftover ingredients in trays on a scale. Since starting the project, Google calculates that it has avoided more than 6 million pounds of food going to landfills or compost. Google works together with a company called Leanpath that provides equipment to measure and track food waste, and it coaches chefs on how to use that data. With the data, chefs can adjust how much food they’re ordering or begin to make other changes, including repurposing food for the next meal; leftover risotto might turn into arancini, or the stems from root vegetables might be used to make pesto or chimichurri sauce. Leftover bananas from one of the company’s “micro kitchens,” where employees make snacks, might be used in banana bread or added to other leftover fruit at a DIY crepe bar. At a juice bar, whole carrots go into blenders along with the carrot tops, and dehydrated fruit pulp can become a powder to add to other food. You get the point. Although the efforts from Google’s chefs doesn’t necessarily eliminate all food waste, it does show how data can be a powerful tool in saving millions of pounds of perfectly good food from winding up in the trash.
Data systems have helped Google save over 6 millions pounds of food in its cafes
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