USC partners with Chefs to End Hunger
USC has taken initiatives to help reduce the food waste coming out of the dining halls on campus this semester by partnering up with the Chefs to End Hunger Program, which is bringing the leftovers from the dining halls to the surrounding community.
Kris Klinger, assistant vice president of retail operations for auxiliary services, said this was something that student groups have been clamoring for for the last several years.
“We’ve had a lot of student groups over the last year or two, in particular, come to us and say, ‘Hey, we want to help you with collecting leftovers to feed the hungry,’” Klinger said.
Klinger said the goal of the partnership is to have zero food waste on campus and the way the dining halls operate helps accomplish this.
“Our goal at the end of the day to have no food to throw away,” Klinger said. “We cook in small batches so it’s fresher and [comes out] more often. So that gives us the ability to limit production when necessary, and then when it’s slower, we try to cook to order. So that really eliminates waste if it’s done well and efficiently.”
However, not all of the dining halls’ food can be prepared in this way, which is where Chefs to End Hunger is helping.
“Where that can’t be done is with pastries and bread that are left out,” Klinger said. “So those are the items that we usually pull for the day. Those are the items that we usually end up sending on a daily basis.”
Liana Wertman, a senior majoring in history, thinks that it’s been a major accomplishment that Chefs to End Hunger has been willing to partner with USC at all.
“It’s tough with cooked food,” Wertman said. “A lot of the people don’t use all of the food that we end up buying, and if it doesn’t look right, they end up throwing it away. It’s really hard to get actual businesses to buy into that. It’s really easy to not do anything about that just throw the food away.”
The leftovers from the dining halls will go downtown due to the need for feeding the people in that area, Klinger said.
“Our food goes downtown. I think they try to keep it geographical, but it just depends on where they’re picking it up and where the need is.”
Evan Ishibashi, a junior majoring in business administration, thinks that having the food sent to Downtown will help further cement USC’s status as a leader in the local community.
“I think this is such a great thing,” he said. “USC does such a great job serving the surrounding communities in feeding the homeless and being involved in the elementary schools, middle schools and high schools.”
Ishibashi also suggested that food waste could also be reduced in the future by controlling the portions students are taking from the dining halls.
“As far as further steps, I think a lot of food is wasted on people overfilling their plates at the dining halls and just tossing it and not finishing it, and I think there should be some portion control,” he said.
However, Wertman felt that overall this partnership was a step in the right direction and that she’s proud that USC is a part of it.
“Food waste is a huge issue in America, and I’m proud to say that my school is doing something about it,” Wertman said.