Tackling food waste, a shipping company’s perspective

Dani Lindberg,
Sustainability Manager,
Viking Line Abp,
Finland

The creation of a sustainable food system capable of providing sufficient nourishment to a rapidly growing global population is arguably one of the most pressing challenges of our time. Agriculture is one of the most notable anthropogenic contributors to climate change, accounting for nearly a third of global GHG emissions. Moreover, the agriculture sector strongly impacts many of the Earth’s systems, such as the nitrogen and phosphorous cycles, and growing food requires copious amounts of fresh water, land, and energy. Consequently, attaining sustainable production and consumption patterns while also battling an unprecedented climate crisis is no small matter. Solutions will no doubt require a multi-stakeholder approach throughout the entire food system, as well as keen regulatory foresight.

When considering the cost of food in terms of both natural and man-made capital, it becomes apparent that efforts need to be undertaken to avoid both food loss and waste at every level of the food chain. However, as it is inevitable that some food waste will be generated within the food cycle, the question of how to best deal with it becomes a pertinent one.

These were some of the considerations present at the outset of a sustainability project undertaken by Viking Line, a Finnish shipping company operating a fleet of ferries on the Northern Baltic Sea. [Contextual:] Viking Line transports some 6.5 million passengers annually between Finland, Sweden, Estonia and the Aland Islands. Dining is considered one of the cornerstones of the onboard experience, with a selection of several restaurants on each vessel catering to different tastes. The buffet restaurants have been a passenger favorite for decades, and well over a million dinner guests dine at the shipping company’s buffets annually.

The aim of the Viking Line project was to reduce the amount of food waste produced onboard one of its ferries, M/S Mariella. The project was to be undertaken without compromises to the quality, freshness or the availability of the food served. The project was scheduled to run over a four-month period in 2019 and, as a matter of course, any garnered insights would become standard company policy. Moreover, the remaining food waste would be transported to a land-based plant to be used as feedstock to make biogas. The project called for negligible investments, which kept expectations modest. However, the results would prove a surprise for many.

Typically, food waste generation onboard a ferry occurs as customer plate waste, kitchen waste, and as waste borne of overproduction. Counteracting the generation of waste at each level was the project’s main goal. The generated waste would have to be measured and categorized to allow for proper reporting and follow-up. Therefore, an external partner was invited to equip the kitchen waste bins with scales and supply the appropriate software for the categorization and logging of waste types and amounts.

Counteracting plate waste at a buffet can be a notoriously difficult task, as many restauranter owners will attest. There is a psychological element present in the dining experience which tends to cause the dinner guest to overestimate their appetite and thus generate plate waste. The dinner guest cannot be faulted for this either, as a lot of meticulous work go into presenting the dishes in as delicious a way as possible. And after all, the restaurant promises an all you can eat experience.

What Viking Line kitchen staff have found, though, is that a smarter presentation of dishes can indeed reduce plate waste. Pre-portioning and reducing the serving sizes of dishes seems to cause dinner guests to plate less food, thereby generating less waste per plate. Even small reductions account for big savings due to the considerable volume of food served in the buffets.

During the course of the project, waste borne from kitchen activities such as the overproduction of food was found to be a major cause of food waste. Marked savings were achieved by increasing the efficiency of kitchen procedures, such as tweaking the amount of food prepared per pre-booked dinner guest. The kitchen staff also found that some of the more resilient food items left over from lunch could be prepared as side dishes for dinner and ingredients were generally utilized more comprehensively. Furthermore, through diligent monitoring of waste logs, it was found that some dishes tended to end up as waste more readily than others. The issue was quickly addressed through adjustments in kitchen preparation.

Despite the modest budget and expectations, the project’s results were a resounding success. During the four-month duration, food waste generation onboard the vessel was reduced by 40 % per passenger. The amount of food waste generated fell by 27 metric tons, equal to approximately 70.000 servings. Moreover, as an unforeseen bonus, the meticulous sorting allowed for less food waste to be lost as unsorted landfill-bound waste, increasing the amount available for biogas production. Viking Line has since been working on scaling up the project activities to cover its entire fleet.

It was found that the act of breaking previous behavioral patterns and mindsets was the key factor in the project’s success. Assisted by digitalization, the kitchen staff of M/S Mariella were handed new tools to monitor their activities and could see the results of their efforts in real time. The staff became personally invested in the project, and new ways of thinking emerged. The value of food gained the attention it rightfully deserved, and maximizing that value became a leading thought in the minds of the staff. The project well illustrates how the act of valuing the resources we have can bring about considerable changes in the way we operate and how we set our goals for the future.

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