Where does food go when students finish with it? There are two answers: Trash and reuse.

According to a leading waste management company, Recycle Track Systems, each year in the USA, 120 billion pounds of food is wasted, equaling 40% of the American food supply. This equates to about 325 pounds of waste per person in the United States.

How does the Upper School factor into this? David Dahmes, Taher’s head chef at the Upper School, estimated they dispose of “50 pounds a day” with a complete rotation of food items, “every two to three days.”  Despite this seeming like a baffling number, Dahmes said, “I do pride ourselves in how much food waste we don’t generate.” They do this through a variety of methods.

     The first method is through lunch timing and batch cooking. Frequently, they have more than necessary described, “I’m not cooking all the chicken because I’m waiting to see if we’ll need to cook more,” such that “at the end of the day, we don’t have so much cooked chicken left over.”  As entailed by Dahmes, the structured 35-minute time period between lunches “gives us that time to cook more food if needed.” The intentional under-cooking sometimes leads to minor consequences, as there have been days when they realize, “We’re gonna run out, and that’s just unfortunate.” Ultimately, this is okay as they “know that everyone was fed.”

     The second tool is one of creativity. Knowing that food needs to be thrown away if left unused, reinvention is a frequent tool to minimize food waste. He believes that “there are lots of ways that we can  utilize food a second time.” Dahmes used chicken to explain, “We are able to utilize the chicken and make it into a chicken salad or make it into a soup or just put in shredded chicken on the salad bar.”

     A third method of food waste reduction is unfortunately left unutilized most of the time. Food banks are a great way to reuse food. Dahmes and the Taher staff have attempted to use food banks to recycle, but frequently, “they don’t show up because they don’t have the staff that they need.” Unfortunately, “[on a] day-to-day basis, it’s not really feasible.”

      The second leg of food waste at the Upper School hinges on the students. Much of the waste comes down to consciousness. Unfortunately, “There have been many times we’ve seen people take two, three chicken thighs, and then they eat one, then realize they took too much, and the rest ends up in the trash.” He emphasized: “it’s really important to be watchful of as a person and be aware of what you can eat.” To combat this, Taher intentionally serves the students smaller servings, and encourages them to come back as necessary.

In the end, Dahmes believed that this is a collective effort between staff and students, saying “We all want the best for the world.”