Winnow Waste System at Teddy Hall

The St Edmund Hall Catering team use Winnow Waste: a waste system to record how much food is wasted at the College.

It helps us to record our plate waste in the servery to see how much is going into the bin and what exactly the food is, as it takes a photo.  This has been a great way of getting the correct portion control for each dish.  Since using this system, we have cut down on plate waste.  A weekly report is sent out in the College newsletter so that the Hall community can see what they are doing to help with Sustainability food wise at Teddy Hall.

Winnow waste also records the overproduction of food coming back from the Servery, this data is logged and sent to the Executive Head Chef.  This data is then used for future productions and reduces waste.  Once again, since using this system we have cut down on overproduction.

Winnow also records the ‘unused food’ (vegetable trimmings, fruit trimmings etc). We now spend a lot of time using the ‘unused foods’ in our dishes. For instance, broccoli stalks in stir fries, we dehydrate carrot skins and grind them to a powder for garnishing, and we also use a lot of the trimmings in soups and fresh salads. Broccoli stalks are tastier when sliced thin and put through a salad, rather than the broccoli flower itself and much healthier.

Overall using the Winnow waste system has helped us here at Teddy Hall with cutting down on food waste and making us a more sustainable as a college.