MEIRER Talks Trash Dr. Michael Meirer

This episode of MEIRER Talks Trash
The discussion on Marius' FCSI article "Authenticity in restaurants - now and after the pandemic" led Marius and Michael to the topic of the buzzword sustainability vs. greenwashing in the hospitality industry. Marius explains how restaurants can avoid food waste and gives some useful tips on reducing the three types of food waste (preparation waste, plate waste and food surplus/overproduction). They discuss the role of Mc Donalds in sustainability and talk about an impressive example of bread waste in Austria and how the Ässbar company in Switzerland has found a way to avoid bread waste. They also discuss some of Marius' other FCSI blog posts and take a look into the future and make some predictions about what the hospitality industry will look like after the pandemic.

Marius Zürcher
Co-Owner & Founder 1520 / Gen Y & Z Consulting

About MEIRER Talks Trash
My passion for trash is not just talk. I am particularly passionate about food waste. I love waste, but hate wasting: So, my doctoral thesis examines how to treat organic parts in residual waste most resourcefully. As an engineer by training and Head of Business Development & Product Management by job description, I am always looking for sustainably better solutions to energize organic waste. In MEIRER Talks Trash, I talk to experts from different fields that share my passion for trash.

Music Many thanks to Mathias Krispin Bucher "ASPERITAS - ein Stück in 12 Liedern"
https://www.youtube.com/user/tam0range
https://www.mathiaskrispinbucher.com/ 

Dr. Michael Meirer
Head of Product Management & Business Development
MEIKO GREEN Waste Solutions

Dr. Michael Meirer talks about the impact of plate size on food waste to scientists Dr. Babak Ravandi and Nina Jovanovic.  Their paper "Impact of plate size on food waste: Agent-based simulation of food consumption" was published in "Resources, Conservation & Recycling" in 2019. (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344919302459?via%3Dihub)

Abstract of their paper
"Food waste is a substantial contributor to environmental change and it poses a threat to global sustainability. A significant portion of this waste accounts for plate waste and food surplus from food-service operations such as restaurants, workplace canteens, cafeterias, etc. In this work, we seek to identify potential strategies to optimize food consumption in all-you-can-eat food-service operations, in terms of minimizing food waste while ensuring quality of service (i.e., maintaining low wait-time, unsatisfied-hunger, and walk-out percentages). We treat these facilities as complex systems and propose an agent-based model to capture the dynamics between plate waste, food surplus, and the facility organization setup. Moreover, we measure the impact of plate size on food waste. The simulation results show reducing plate size from large to small decreases plate waste up to 30% while ensuring quality of service. However, total waste as the sum of food surplus and plate waste is lower with large plates. Our results indicate the need for optimizing food preparation along with designing choice environments that encourage guests to avoid taking more food than they need."

Dr. Babak Ravandi
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Barabási Lab, Center for Complex Network Research, Physics Department, Northeastern University, Boston, USA
https://bravandi.net
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bravandi/
https://twitter.com/BabakRavandi

Nina Jovanovic
Ph.D. candidate
Department of Agricultural Economics, Purdue University
https://www.ninajovanovic.com
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ninajovanovic/

Music
Many thanks to Mathias Krispin Bucher
"ASPERITAS - ein Stück in 12 Liedern"
https://www.youtube.com/user/tam0range
https://www.mathiaskrispinbucher.com/ 

Dr. Michael Meirer
Head of Business Development & Product Management
MEIKO GREEN Waste Solutions
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-meirer-gaggl/