Fresh hamburgers are practically made to order at campus dining halls. But that order needs to be filled in 10 minutes or that burger is thrown out, like the pounds of lettuce, peanut butter and other foods thrown out each day.
In an investigation into just how much food is thrown out, multiple sources highlight a largely successful system that is working toward improvement in lacking areas.
On an average day, housing cafeterias serve 7,300 students, ranging from 2,600 at Pop's Club in Gordon Commons to 950 at the Elizabeth Waters cafeteria, according to Brian Burke, UW Housing Food Services manager.
On an annual basis, University Housing Food Services purchases more than $9 million in food and supplies, according to Food Services administrator Angie Erickson.
A main concern for the staff is determining when and how to deal with the thousands of pounds of leftover or uneaten food each day. Workers must make sure the leftover food complies with Wisconsin statutes related to keeping food free of disease.
""[Housing Food Services] tries to be stricter than the state food codes,"" Burke said.
""[It depends on] whether it has been out on a salad bar where everybody can get at it or whether it's been on the serving line and we have control over how long and how hot it's been,"" he said.
He said many factors determine what can be thrown away, donated or saved.
According to Burke, food cooked in cafeterias can only be retained for a certain period of time and then has to be disposed of or sent to local food banks.
Julie Luke, associate director of dining and culinary service for University Housing, said items like hamburgers are only allowed to be on the serving line for 10 minutes before being thrown away.
According to UW-Madison senior Aaron Vieth, who has worked in Housing Food Services for several years, a lot of the waste comes from salad bar items and condiments thrown out each night.
Vieth said the main reason food like lettuce is thrown away each night is so only food safe to eat is used. He also said Food Services is trying to watch more closely how much food is needed each day so less wasted food would be created.
Despite these procedures, dining halls do ""not have written rules and regulations about what needs to be thrown away instead of saved or donated,"" according to Luke.
""Obviously in food service you do everything you can to cut back waste, but there is always going to be some,"" Vieth said.
A recent study of food waste from Pop's Club trays found that 0.25 ounces of waste is generated per customer, including napkins, but not including dairy or meat, Luke said. She said waste amount numbers are only available for items that will eventually be composted, not other food items.
The 0.25 ounces adds up to over 40 pounds of wasted food every day at Pop's, not including the non-compost-ready food the 2,600 students use each day there.
""To help with conservation efforts students should be as thoughtful as they can about waste with paper goods and disposables, particularly in carry-out operations,"" Luke said.
Luke said numbers are not available for how much is wasted at the salad bars or in preparing the food. She said that data is often submitted inconsistently by dining halls and University Housing is still working on a system to track the information.
Student employees are instructed not to throw away food, she said.
Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin spokesperson Anna Nelson said the bank received over 8,422 pounds of food from University Housing between Nov. 26 and Dec. 22, 2008, including perishable and nonperishable food.
""Food donations from University Housing Services typically coincide with times that the dorms are closing for breaks,"" Nelson said.
Luke said it would be difficult to assign a monetary amount to how much the donated food is worth due to the varying prices for individual food items. She said the amount donated is ""little more than a pound per resident"" and given because the food would go bad over winter break.
Of the food donated, one-third was milk that costs 70 cents per pound. That equals roughly $2,000 donated each December, not counting the two-thirds of the donated food that is not milk.
A major reduction in food waste came from 2008-'09 procedural changes to the condiment bars, according to Luke. She said to stop waste, items like opened ketchup bottles will be saved at the end of each night instead of being thrown out.
Luke said staff members have also been instructed to put reduced amounts of products on the salad bar nearer to closing times.
In combining efforts with conservation plans already on campus, UHFS plans to update two food units with composting equipment to help deal with local organic food served, as it is often less clean than typical food used, according to Luke. The composted food can then be used for fertilizer.
According to Luke, similar initiatives are already being implemented in conjunction with the We Conserve program to make Food Services more environmentally friendly.
""[The initiatives will] strengthen our sustainability efforts by greener, more local purchasing and greener operating procedures that are also fiscally responsible,"" Luke said.
—Charles Brace contributed to this report
Kosher kitchen unable to find funds, special staff
Chadbourne Hall's kosher kitchen opened last year, but it has already closed its doors.
""We have had trouble recruiting and retaining mashgiahs, who are the staff that we need to have on site supervising the operation of the kosher kitchen,"" University Housing director Paul Evans said.
The kosher kitchen was certified with the Chicago Rabbinical Council, which helped recruit and certify applicants, Evans said.
""We haven't had a mashgiah since last November, and we ... made multiple offers but were unable to get someone to come,"" Evans said.
A mashgiah is needed in the kosher kitchen to make sure the food conforms to Jewish traditions such as how the meat is prepared and how the animal was killed. A mashgiah would make sure kosher food is not prepared with the same utensils used for non-kosher food, among other procedures.
Evans said funding through the UW Foundation was supposed to cover the cost of two mashgiahs, but that money ""never materialized.""
""With the combination of the cost and not wanting to pass that on to the students and the difficulty in recruiting the necessary staff, we couldn't sustain it,"" he said.
According to Evans, prepackaged convenience-store kosher items may be expanded throughout campus cafeterias, particularly at Rheta's in Chadbourne.
