The VA Department's Veterans Canteen Service Attacks Food Waste

Food waste isn’t a problem generally associated with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, but the network of cafes and food service operations catering to VA facilities generates tons of it.

So the agency’s Veterans Canteen Service aims to reduce the food waste it sends to landfill by about 600,000 pounds this year by recycling used cooking oil and composting.

The canteen service, which operates VCS Patriot Cafes at about 180 VA facilities in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, recently completed two pilot programs for the initiatives.

The test of the cooking oil recovery program was the most recent. In the 30-day trial, which began Jan. 18, used cooking oil was collected from VCS Patriot Cafes in West Palm Beach, Fla.; St. Louis; and Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Temple, Texas. The canteen service worked with Quest Recycling, based in Frisco, Texas, on the project.

Analysis of results are pending, but the canteen service estimates it can recycle about 583,000 pounds of cooking oil a year. The program also would have a safety benefit for kitchen staff because the equipment used to collect the oil minimizes human contact with the hot fluid. The canteen service anticipates that it will roll out the program at 20 sites each month.

For the composting pilot, the canteen service worked with the Nutrition and Food Service Group at the Martinsburg VA Medical Center in West Virginia to conduct a test at the site’s VCS Patriot Cafe. Early information on pilot, which ran from Dec. 19 to Jan. 31, indicated that about 30 pounds of kitchen waste was composted each week.

The medical center devised a composting system two years ago that led to honors from the VA Department and the Obama administration. The health care facility received a VA Sustainability Achievement Award and a GreenGov Presidential Award in 2010 for the system’s design and the results it produced.

That system will form the basis for composting policies and practices for VCS Patriot Cafes, according to the canteen service. The food service operator said further pilots are in the works at medical centers in West Palm Beach, Fla.; and San Francisco, San Diego and Palo Alto, Calif.

The Veterans Affairs Department has a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2020 and is expected to cut waste by 50 percent by 2015.

“These initiatives will be a big step toward achieving that goal,” VCS Director Marilyn Iverson said in a statement, referring to the waste reduction target.

The goals were set in response to President Obama’s executive order in October 2009 that called for all federal agencies to set aggressive sustainability agendas to reduce GHG emissions by 2020.
Other VCS efforts to reduce waste include:

• A program encourage use of reusable mugs at Patriot Cafes
• Replacing Styrofoam cups with recyclable paper cups
• Selling tote bags made of recycled plastic to reduce use of virgin high-density polyethylene plastic bags
• Eliminating publication of hard copies of the canteen service’s 3,000-page manual of operation policies and procedures, and placing the document online

Photo of food waste via Shutterstock.com