Preventing Waste at Retail
Sandy Sonnenfelt, who runs the prepared food and pasta pro-
grams for Market Hall Foods in Northern California, says one of
the most important parts of controlling food waste is having the
back end of the operation working to ensure no over-production
and no over-purchasing of produce and other items. "We're con-
stantly shifting around produce that needs to be used," she explains.
Market Hall also updates a waste sheet at the close of each day,
and when a particular sandwich or dish isn't selling well, Sonnenfelt
changes it up to ensure all ingredients are being used to their fullest.
"We try to tailor our product to what we sell," she says. "It's a dance.
We look at what we're producing, we look at what we sell, and we
look at what's left over."
The retailer can use the City of Oakland's municipal compost
Sprouts Farmers Market runs a
robust food rescue program that
saw 18 million pounds of still-
edible food products donated to
food banks last year, as well as a
composting program that sends
inedibles to a compost site or
farm to be used as cattle feed.
PHOTO:
SPROUTS
FARMERS
MARKET
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