Food Waste Prevention and Measurement with Leanpath’s Andrew Shakman

Our latest episode is with Andrew Shakman, CEO of Leanpath, an industry leading food waste prevention platform. Together, we discuss the importance of food waste prevention, the need for improved and affordable measurement methods, and how to change kitchen culture to drive companies and consumers to recognize the value of food. 

If you have an idea for an episode topic you’d like to see featured or if you would like to participate in an episode of USAID’s Kitchen Sink, please reach out to Nika Larian (nlarian@usaid.gov).

There’s no time to waste!

Transcript

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(Speaker 1: 0:06

Nika Larian) Welcome to USAID's Kitchen Sink a food loss and waste podcast. I'm your producer, Nika Lian. 30 to 40% of the food that is produced is either lost or wasted, contributing to a global food crisis with over 800 million going to bed hungry. Listen on as USAID experts speak with researchers and development professionals to explore solutions to this critical issue that demands a kitchen sink approach. When it comes to climate food security and food system sustainability, we have no time to waste. Thanks for tuning in to USAID's Kitchen Sink, a Food Loss and Waste podcast. My name is Nika Larian, Food Loss and waste advisor and producer of the Kitchen Sink. Today I will be joined by Andrew Shakman, CEO of LeanPath, an industry leading food waste prevention platform. Andrew and I will discuss the importance of preventing food waste at the source, the critical role of measurement and the narrative shifts that we need to accomplish in order to tackle food loss and waste. Welcome, Andrew, please introduce yourself.

(Speaker 2: 1:15

Andrew Shakman) Thank you, Nika. It's great to join you. So, as you said, I am Andrew Shakman with LeanPath, and my story related to food loss and waste begins almost exactly 20 years ago when we began visioning what LeanPath would become. And we founded it just the beginning of 2004. So we're coming up to our 20th anniversary. And I've spent this period focused really singularly on food waste and specifically food waste prevention, and building impact in food service and hospitality organizations, helping them understand what they're wasting, change culture and ultimately prevent food waste at scale. And today we do that in over 40 countries working with large and medium and some smaller food service operations, enabling them to tackle this really significant problem that is in front of them every day. Thanks for that background, Andrew. I'm excited to dive into this conversation. And I want to kick us off by discussing the importance of food waste prevention. Tactics like composting, upcycling and donating food can help mitigate the impacts of food loss and waste. However, prevention at source can have the biggest impacts to accomplish our food systems and climate goals. How can we highlight the importance of prevention? Well, it's a great question, and I think we have to start by acknowledging that people think they know about prevention. And when you talk to folks who work on or around food waste, often they will say, of course, prevention is the most important thing. And then what I see is often they move right along to talking about something that's lower on the food waste hierarchy, whether that is food recovery or it is composting or it's, you know, energy production with anaerobic digestion or whatever it might be. And I think the reason is because those things are so tangible. You can see them, you can smell them, you can touch them. It's easy to know that something is happening. And there's such a strong allure to that, even for those of us I think, who are really versed with this issue and who are spending a lot of time thinking about it. So thought one is just, I think we all know that prevention's at the top of the hierarchy because it is the thing which has the greatest impact on reducing the amount of resources that are consumed and the amount of external impacts, whether those are environmental or social. If we want to have true system level impact, we have to do it at the prevention level. We aren't going to compost our way out of a food waste problem that is immense and not stopping. So we've got to go to the source. And I often think about this in a kitchen, almost like a leak of water. You know, when we see that leak in a big pipe that's got water coming out of it, do we get a mop or do we go turn off the water. And you know, of course we turn off the water and it's the same thing with this. So I think the challenge is that we know that, but we often jump past it. And we have to help people understand that there are indeed very, very proven techniques for driving prevention. And some of them are very specific to certain operating contexts, but one that is cross-cutting and horizontal is measurement. And we know when we measure things that we improve them and a whole bunch of positive things come from that. So if there's one thing I hope people will take from this conversation, it's that measurement and prevention are inextricably linked. And that when we want to prevent food waste, we start with measurement. I really enjoy your leaky kitchen analogy. I mean, really in and of itself, food loss and waste is a leak in our kitchens and in our food systems that is reducing efficiency. And of course appreciate your tie to measurement and how it's inextricably linked to prevention. The importance of food loss and waste measurement is a common theme that u USAID is seeing in its conversations with the inter-agency and other development organizations. So how can we make food loss and waste measurement more accurate, more affordable, and more accessible? So I think it's great that measurement is in the conversation now. First of all, I think it's important that it's in the conversation in the most complete way. And so I would start by making sure that we understand that measurement isn't just about national numbers or state numbers or industry numbers or even the numbers for a particular location. Measurement is really about the process of engaging frontline team members in understanding what is being wasted. So measurement is the first act of prevention. When you ask someone to measure something, you're asking them to think about it for a moment. And when that connection happens, there's some electricity that sparks there and people go, wow, I really hadn't been thinking about that, but when you ask me to measure something now I see it in a different way. And there's a great Buckminster Fuller quote that I love and I repeat off it, which is,"if you want to change the way someone thinks, don't bother. Instead give them a tool, and through the use of a tool that will cause the change." I'm paraphrasing, but effectively, when you ask frontline team members and kitchens to measure, it changes their relationship to the food waste and empowers them to see it and modify it. So I think step one on measurement is just recognizing it's not just about collecting data and sending it somewhere and tabulating it, it's about the process itself of collecting. I think the second point is that there is a myth floating around pretty broadly, I think, which is that measurement is hard. And I hear that in a lot of these conversations where people say, we know measurement's important, but it's difficult. And you know, I've been working on measurement for 20 years and I am aware that there are, there are certainly things you have to solve to make measurement work in different contexts, but I would not describe it as difficult. The point that we're at in the development of working on this problem, we have technology solutions like those that LeanPath brings, but you also have pretty straightforward processes that people can go through on their own, with a piece of paper even to record without that being hugely difficult. And so from my perspective, it's incredibly important that we remind people that we put a lot more time into making food, producing it, you know, processing it, receiving it, producing it, and then throwing it away. We put a lot more time into that in food service than we do into measurement, and we end up net positive on our time when we measure things. And obviously the technology tools significantly accelerate that because it automates and helps people do things even more quickly and see that information more clearly. So from my perspective, I think the industry and the movement around food waste would be well served by acknowledging that measurement is not an impossible activity, it's a very doable activity. Now you asked about accuracy and ease and all of those things, and I think we have to also recognize that we don't have to be perfect. So when we talk about accuracy, it's interesting how you go from a situation where people had no data on food waste, right? Like none. And the best data we had was a dumpster dive, right? Like once a year or every two years. And the moment you're measuring daily, now everyone's worried about precision, right? Like, did we get it exactly right. And so I like to remind everybody that we've had a huge amount of progress when we can see characterization, quantification down to the minute of what's going on. And let's not worry too much about having, you know, 99.99999% accuracy. I mean, let's get solid, let's get 99%, but let's recognize that the important thing here is the action of thinking about this and moving on the problem. So that would be my response on accuracy. And I think overall, costs on solutions commercially are falling and I think there's just a lot of options today for people to measure. Absolutely. I think measurement helps drive action. At the start of our conversation, you talked about how things like composting and recovery are very tangible. And I love that you pointed out that measurement makes prevention a tangible option. I am curious, you mentioned this measurement myth that people think it's really difficult. What are some of the perceived barriers that you run into? Is it fear of cost, fear of new technologies? What are some of the barriers that you see? So certainly one of the first things that we hear is labor. And remember the context in which I focus and LeanPath focuses is in food service and hospitality. And we know that this industry has been incredibly challenged on the labor front, particularly coming out of COVID, it has been the central challenge for many operators. And so we take it very, very seriously, the concern about labor, and we always have. But what's interesting is that in the nearly 20 years we've been doing this, we've never had someone tell us they added labor to do measurement. And I think the reason for this is that people are already moving food. When you have food to throw away, you're already carrying a pan, you're taking it to a compost bin, hopefully, maybe the garbage pan, if we're not doing so well, you're scraping it, you're cleaning that pan and sanitizing it, putting back on a shelf. So you already have a workflow to deal with waves. Measurement adds a few seconds to that process. It is not the driver of the labor. It is a small little insertion into that process seconds that add up cumulatively to minutes in the course of a week. So we're not talking about a big driver, but that is a worry that people have around, oh, do we have time to do this? And again, I would argue, you have time to overproduce food in most cases, and there's a lot more money going into that food that you made, the labor that's in that food than there is in the measurement of the food waste to learn from it. So we've gotta look at the real problem. And the real problem is that 51% of the waste that we see recorded at the pre-consumer level is overproduction, and that overproduction is food and labor going into the garbage. So we've gotta, I think, start there. So that's one concern. The other concern is cost. People do raise the question of can I afford technology tools? And you know, I've always taken the view that the perfect is the enemy of the good, as I mentioned earlier. And I would love to see people do some measurement, even if it's manual versus doing no measurement. But of course, I believe that technology is a transformative and enabling element here. And that's why we created a company to create a category, to go create those tools when they didn't exist. And what I see now is on the technology front, there are many more tools, including even just within our toolkit that serve different operations at different price points. And so to the extent people are worried about an investment, I would argue that there are very few operations today that can't generate a positive return on investment from putting an investment into working on food waste prevention and measurement. Like we work on these business cases all the time, and it's very rare that we can't make that work. And that's just because, you know, if you look at it, and we're a B Corp at LeanPath, right? Like our goal is to build a great business but also critically to drive impact. And we need to drive impact broadly. And our mission is to make food waste prevention and measurement everyday practice in the world's kitchens. And so you can't be everyday practice in the world's kitchens if something is super expensive. So I think it's incumbent on the industry to make this accessible and we're working hard at that. Absolutely. I mean, I think you really hit home on the fact that it is about improving efficiency across the board, efficiency and time and how we're spending our labor, our resources and our systems, our food systems. Andrew, I wanna ask you about perhaps a slogan of LeanPath. I've heard in some of our previous conversations, track, discovery, drive. Can you walk us through those three steps? I think we've talked about track and discovery already in this conversation, and I want to shift our focus to drive and discussing how we can change kitchen culture and drive companies and consumers to recognize the value of food. Yeah, so track, discover, drive for us is really tracking is the measurements in the kitchen. Discover or discovery is the process of organizing that data into information that's meaningful for chefs and leaders to understand what's happening. And that's an automated process ideally, but then communicating it in a way where people engage with it. Drive is where we take that information and turn it into action. And I think that's the most exciting frontier in this work now, right? If we can overcome the challenge, get people to focus on prevention, get people to connect measurement and prevention, and that measurement is doable and go do it. There's a lot of ifs there. But the good news is a lot of that is happening then we get to work on the drive piece. And the drive piece is about changing culture and behavior and the way we work in kitchens. And there tend to be three pivot points. It's what we produce and how we produce it. There's what we purchase and when and how we purchase it. And there's what's on the menu. And there are choices that go into all of those elements. And in every one of those choices, there's an opportunity for food waste to occur. And so what we try to do with drive at LeanPath is to help people understand where their problems are, but then be able to action those problems in a more focused manner. Because it's really difficult if you say to a food service operator, Hey, you've got 10,000 pounds of waste, you know, this month(music playing) and you should go work on all of it. People go, what? Where do I start? That's a lot. Well what if we can focus and we can say, Hey, you really seem to have a big problem with vegetables that you're overproducing at lunch. Okay, let's go work on that. And so we build tools that help people focus and guide them through the process of working on those specific items and show them how they're doing in that process and then help connect them to see how their peers are doing. And so we're trying to integrate behavioral science and social norming into this process of helping people focus. And we know that focus is our friend, trying to do everything at once, we won't be successful. So when we look at the food waste problem in food service and hospitality, for us it's that track and discover, but then critically, how do you give people tools and workflows and things that guide them? And that I think is often where people are surprised with LeanPath. They sort of think, oh, LeanPath is a measurement tool. And yes, that's one part of what we do, but I think much more critically it's an engagement tool and a tool that leads and guides people towards making those changes. And in the end, that's what we're excited about, right? Which is how do we drive that impact? And it's not measurement for the sake of measurement, as we've talked about, measurement is about something bigger and it's about changing culture and beliefs. Absolutely. I love this idea of transforming data into action. And I know USAID and others have done a lot to try to raise awareness. I have mentioned, you know, how can we inform people and help them recognize the value of food. And I think it is unfortunately become a very cultural thing, at least here in the US that wasting food is very normal and culturally acceptable. And I think at USAID we talk about the triple winds of reducing food loss and waste and the potential impacts that it can have on improving climate, improving nutrition and food security and improving economic development. And so I think in addition to supplying the data, the track and the discover, we have to have that drive piece, that behavioral component so people actually feel motivated to use the tools and then take the data and the information that they have and actually change behavior. So I wanna end on that note of driving change and I wanna hear your thoughts on the need for leadership in the food loss and waste space. Well, there certainly are some tremendous efforts afoot and it's, you know, I look around and I see a broad community of people working hard on this issue. And in fact, I'm amazed because when we started 20 years ago, there was very little emphasis in this. So we've come a long way and yet at the same time, we aren't doing nearly enough. And you hear the data when we hear the readouts on various organization, providing status reports on the issue, and it's sobering. We've been working on this SDG now since 2015. We've not made nearly enough progress to be on pace to deliver on the goal. And so yes, we need leadership. And I think that leadership comes in the form of bold commitments, scaled action, a recognition that the real risk we face is not that we might take an initiative and have it not work or have it be inconvenient or a little, maybe a little rough around the edges at the onset. The real risk that we're facing is that we don't address climate change and we don't address food insecurity and we don't address biodiversity loss. These are the things that are the real risks in the world. And what I see, I think too much of is amongst a class of people who want to make change, still we bring our own limiting beliefs to this, which is to say we worry about how will this be accepted? How will we fund this? Maybe we should do a pilot and start small and see how it goes. You know, these kinds of thought processes, which I think really reflect us negotiating with ourselves over many years of trying to drive change and maybe not getting as far as we want. And so I think right now it's time to be bold. It's time to say why not bigger, why not broader, why not faster? We don't have time to lose. We have lots of proven solutions out there. And you know, and I face this and every so often, maybe more than I'd like. A potential client will talk with me and say, Hey, can we start small? And I totally get where they're coming from. Like, I'm empathetic and yet at the same time, because I know everyone wants to make sure they don't make an error or you know, something along those lines. But really trying to help them see that bigger picture and whatever those risks are they're managing are not the risks that are the real ones. So that's where we are. I think we need bold, decisive action, people willing to really push for scale. And I think that means doing it, making sure we're indeed aligned. You know, we're past the point where we can make commitments and get credit for a commitment. The question is what are we doing. And beyond what are we doing, is it working? And if it's not working, then what are we gonna do to make it work? And we have to have a ton of transparency around that. We've gotta be reporting publicly. And I know that that is scary at some level, but it's much scarier not to solve this problem. And I should say there are a lot of people working on this who are doing good, who are on that journey. I don't wanna suggest I don't see leadership, I see a lot of it, but we need more. I agree, and I think you've really highlighted that this is an issue that has maybe gone under noticed and underappreciated for many years, but I really think that the conversation is gaining a lot of momentum and there are more and more organizations dipping their toes into the food loss and waste space, so to speak. And I think I've definitely noticed that it has risen in priority at USAID and we've made our own bold commitments in 2021 at the UN Food System Summit. We dedicated $60 million to food loss and waste research and development. And then just recently, a couple weeks ago at Bunga, we made an announcement for an additional $10 million for our food loss and waste accelerator, which is dedicated to providing co-investment to small and medium enterprises in low and middle income countries to provide co-investment to scale innovations to reduce food loss and waste. And with that there's also a policy and advocacy component. So I'm really proud of the way that USAID has continued to elevate food loss and waste in our conversations. But I agree that there is a continued need for bold commitments. There's a continued need for coordinated leadership across all of these different organizations and agencies and NGOs, companies that are interested in the food loss and waste space. There's definitely a need for coordinated leadership and I hope that with COP 28 coming up at the end of November, beginning of December, I'm hoping that we will see some of those big commitments there. I hope you're right. And by the way, final point, I think the more we can connect the food waste work and food loss and waste work to climate, the better. And so your point about COP and bringing that community of climate action to much more clearly see the inextricable linkage with food systems change is I think one of our top opportunities. And while people have been working on that for a while, I still don't think we're there. So more to be done with that. Absolutely. I think it's great that we now have a food today at COP, but we are really pushing, I know USAID and the other agencies are really pushing to have food loss and waste be more at the forefront. So I'm hoping that comes to fruition. I'm hoping that it is really elevated at the conversation at COP because I think there's a really great potential there to, again, elevate the conversation, have some big commitments and really drive some change in this space. But thank you so much Andrew. This has been a really great conversation and I've enjoyed learning more about the work of LeanPath and discussing the importance of measurement and prevention with you today. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.(music playing) Thank you for tuning in to USAID's Kitchen Sink. This podcast was produced by Nika Larian and is organized by the USAID Food Loss and Waste Community of practice co-chairs Ahmed Kablan and Ann Vaughn. Additional thanks goes to Feed the Future, the US Government's Global Food Security Initiative and the USAID Center for Nutrition.(music playing)