The Menus of Change University Research Collaborative (MCURC), in collaboration with ReFED, is helping foodservice operators repurpose food and reduce food waste while supporting their triple bottom line.
MCURC is a global collaboration of more than 80 colleges and universities, foodservice companies, and research collaborators advancing plant-forward diets and reducing food waste in campus dining. During a 12-week research sprint, MCURC chefs at 9 university dining halls developed and implemented recipes with repurposed ingredients. MCURC teamed up with ReFED, a food waste nonprofit in the United States, to track and analyze the data.
Sara Burnett, Executive Director of ReFED, tells Food Tank that when it comes to reducing food waste, prevention should always come first. But, she says, “We can’t prevent all the waste. We’re not able to predict exactly how much to produce all the time. Repurposing is the next step on that journey…It is a way to get through all that volatility that naturally happens in foodservice.”
According to ReFED, the U.S. generated 73.9 million tons of surplus food in 2023. The foodservice sector produced 17.2 percent of that—about 13 million tons.
The MCURC chefs were tasked with designing and implementing one or two repurposed recipes. Over the course of the research sprint, they tracked metrics including cost and pre-consumer food waste.
“Our goal was really to look at how chefs’ creativity could be utilized as a food waste solution,” Abby Fammartino, Co-Director of MCURC, tells Food Tank. “We wanted to know, how does repurposing as a food waste solution impact an operation, quantitatively and qualitatively?”
“When we started a lot of this [research], the concern, or the hesitancy within leadership in our division was, is that going to be possible? That sounds like a lot,” Brian Cochrane, Head Chef at Vanderbilt University and a participant in the research sprint tells Food Tank.
Cochrane thought they might encounter staff resistance to repurposing food. “We thought the chef would have to use a lot more of their own energy,” says Cochrane. But he continues, “What we learned was actually the antithesis of what we anticipated.”
Cochrane’s kitchen started by developing a broccoli slaw recipe using repurposed broccoli stems. Cochrane says, “The cooks assistants, our prep cooks, you know, they got excited. They got invigorated…they started saving everything…they became part of that energy.”
Fammartino notes that they observed increased staff excitement and engagement across institutions. “That was the biggest takeaway that we heard… that it was very fun for the teams and inspiring, motivating for the chefs to work on this challenge.”
Repurposing also delivered quantitative savings, ReFED’s data show. The Repurpose with a Purpose Operational Toolkit distills the research findings into cost-effective, plant-forward strategies for repurposing food.
“In just one calendar month, across those nine universities, they saved about US$20,000 in food costs, which equated to 21,000 gallons of water and 545,000 tons of carbon emissions,” reports Burnett. And, she adds, “you did all that while making your employees more engaged and excited about going to work.”
Fammartino emphasizes that these savings were realized with just one or two recipe substitutions at each of the nine participating colleges. “You can extrapolate that if you’re doing more than more than just two recipes, using repurposing to sort of guide the way you’re leading your operation, then there can be even more savings.”
In Cochrane’s kitchen, creative repurposing has become a cornerstone of their operation, the chef says. Since the research sprint, his team has developed a repurposed sorghum grain salad with dressing made from aquafaba—the liquid in chickpea cans. They have also repurposed fruit pulp into curds and cobblers.
Cochrane thinks that recipes like these, some of which are included in the Toolkit, will be useful for chefs at other dining halls and institutions.
“An operation like ours is fluid, it’s non-stop, and we need something turnkey. Those recipes are so valuable to us to be able to just say, like, here, it’s easy, do this,” says Cochrane.
And students are enjoying the recipes. Cochrane tells Food Tank that the dining hall that participated in the repurposing challenge—one of several at Vanderbilt—“has actually become the most popular residential college dining hall on campus.”
MCURC and ReFED are now working to disseminate the Toolkit, which they hope will provide actionable steps for organizations that want to create more sustainable menus.
“At the end of the day, every kitchen leader is really looking for win-win solutions,” says Burnett. “And repurposing is just that…It’s really that kind of triple bottom line win that everybody’s looking for.”
Articles like the one you just read are made possible through the generosity of Food Tank members. Can we please count on you to be part of our growing movement? Become a member today by clicking here.
Photo courtesy of Dieny Portinanni, Unsplash
