Finding options for wasted food in Olmsted County

Jun. 3—ROCHESTER — Partially uneaten meals and food scraps from Mayo Civic Center's kitchen will soon have a new path out the door.

"There are a lot of things hitting the garbage that can't be recycled, which is frustrating," said Paul Jansen, MCC's general manager.

To address the issue, Mayo Civic Center signed a contract with Blairsburg, Iowa-based GreenRU to start gathering wasted food this month for composting, rather than hauling it off as trash.

"We won't be recovering everything we possibly can by the middle of June, but we will have all the systems in place to start doing that," Jansen said, pointing out staff will need to be trained on sorting out food items. "It will take a little time to get into the rhythm."

The decision comes as approximately 21% of trash collected in Olmsted County is food, whether it's kitchen scraps, expired groceries or other items left uneaten.

Tony Hill, the county's environmental services director, said most of the food ends up in the incinerator at the county's waste-to-energy facility, where the majority of the county's garbage is burned to create steam energy, with the resulting ash headed to the landfill.

He said the moisture in food waste reduces energy-production efficiency and places an extra burden on the county's burners, which is why the county's recently adopted

10-year solid waste management plan

calls for finding new avenues for dealing with food waste.

"Our goal is to not have waste-to-energy or landfills," Hill said of the long-term objective of the county's solid waste program.

As the county looks at options, Mayo Civic Center is joining a variety of businesses and community groups already finding ways to keep food out of trash cans.

For many, the first choice is finding a way to recover food before it becomes waste.

"If we have food that can be consumed, we want it to be donated to someone who can use it," Jansen said, pointing to programs like Community Food Response and Channel One Regional Food Bank as potential outlets where donated food is distributed to food-insecure residents.

Among restaurants and other contributors, Mayo Clinic donated nearly 3 tons of food to such programs last year, according to Operations Administrator Kelly Morse Nowicki, who oversees the clinic's dining program.

"We are looking to expand that," she said, pointing to challenges that existed during the COVID pandemic.

The tonnage of recovered food pales in comparison to the clinic's largest food-waste diversion effort, which sends scraps and other uneaten food to a local hog producer.

The clinic diverted approximately 388 tons of food through the program last year, Nowicki said.

Hill said Hoover Elementary School had a similar program until the hog farmer taking the scraps retired.

"The days of the slop bucket are dwindling," he said, noting producers opt for more control in their feed.

In addition to finding human or animal outlets for edible leftover food, Nowicki said a key way to address food waste is by examining needs before purchases.

"The best way to reduce food waste is at the procurement and sourcing side, and then the prep side," Nowicki said. "We always are focusing on making sure we are getting the right orders in and preparing it the right way."

Mayo High School graduate Gabriella Schimnich said she and other members of the school's Environmental Awareness Club discovered that last year, when the seniors sought to gather cafeteria food scraps for community compost piles.

"There were definitely more preventative things that could be done before composting," she said, pointing to more than scraps that were being collected, since each Friday kitchen staff had to dispose of any food that wouldn't make it through the weekend.

While the composting effort provided some insights for the students, Schimnich, who now studies at the University of Kansas, said it also highlighted the complexity of continuing a program run by students who move through the school.

"I think it needs to be a shift from being student-led to something that the district pushes for," she said.

Schimnich and others involved in efforts to divert food waste cited varying levels of challenges related to controlling what gets pulled from the trash.

Gary Chamness, owner of GreenRU, said that's why his company will be working with Mayo Civic Center employees to address what can be composted and what cannot. The composting options go beyond food scraps to biodegradable containers used to transport food, but mixing in the wrong items can cause challenges down the road.

"It takes quite a bit of involvement on the people's side of things," he said.

Jansen said work has already started in raising awareness among Civic Center staff, with increased recycling efforts, but the new steps around food waste will take time, especially with a staff populated with part-time workers.

"It will take us a couple of months to get through the cycle of getting the entire team trained," he said.

At Mayo Clinic, Nowicki said decades of effort has led to an efficient sorting process.

"We automatically have the food going to the right spot, she said of a kitchen process rooted in the mid-1990s.

At the same time, she said it's a different story when food leaves the kitchen.

"When it gets into the consumer's hands, that consumer behavior is really complicated," she said.

Kelly Rae Kirkpatrick, a local master gardener and Rochester City Council member, said sorting challenges were considered when she helped create a composting effort with local coffee shops.

While a variety of food waste can be produced, she said the focus on coffee grounds was sought to see what could be achieved.

"In our first year, we diverted 25,000 pounds of coffee grounds," she said of the volunteer-led composting effort that benefits gardens at Martin Luther King Park, Village Covenant Church and the Rochester Alternative Learning Center, as well as area lawns and other compost piles.

Allison Roe, general manager for Fiddlehead Coffee Co., said participating in the effort was an easy decision.

"Whether we knock it into a compost bucket or the trash takes the same amount of time," she said of the program that also includes Café Steam and Old Abe Coffee Shop.

However, when other types of food are considered on a larger scale, Olmsted County commissioners have pointed to sorting challenges.

"For people in my generation, this is tough," commissioner Mark Thein said of potentially asking people to sort their food waste for curbside collection.

Hill said two primary options exist for residential food waste. Some communities ask residents to use a third curbside trash container, while others provide special bags for food waste that are placed in the regular curbside bin with other garbage. The bags are removed from the trash in an automated sorting process.

The Minnesota Legislature has authorized $10 million for a planned Olmsted County materials recovery facility for sorting recyclables, which could be expanded to include some form of food-waste sorting as a second phase.

While commissioner Dave Senjem agreed with Thein that curbside sorting might be a challenge for older county residents, he said the process will take time and should be designed for future generations.

"We need to plan our vision around 10-year-olds," he said, suggesting the county develop a plan with the greatest impact.

County Board Chairman Gregg Wright suggested the county could conduct small-scale tests of options before a decision is needed.

"We have time to run pilots with different garbage routes," he said.

Commissioner Sheila Kiscaden said the outcome will also depend on how any proposed change is presented to residents, since they will be required to participate for it to be effective.

Hill said the key selling point for diverting food waste is the fact that it can cut county costs at the waste-to-energy plant and landfill while also turning waste into something with value.

Kirkpatrick said value can be seen in projects as small as coffee ground collection.

"They are straight nitrogen," she said of the coffee grounds, pointing to the potential to accelerate the composting process.

Chamness said it's seen on a larger scale at Green RU, where potential revenue makes the cost of hauling food waste across the stateline worthwhile.

"The material has a great value, especially when you look at the nutrients and the benefits of compost," he said, pointing to the end product's use in agriculture, as well as being sold commercially as a garden soil booster.

While many local efforts are focused on composting, Hill said county commissioners have been discussing another option, which would help turn food into fuel.

Anaerobic digestion is a process using bacteria to break down organic matter, resulting in methane production, which can be used as a renewable natural gas.

Rochester Public Works already uses the process to breakdown organic matter at its Water Reclamation Plant, and Hill hopes to test whether collected food could be processed into something that would efficiently work with the wastewater digesters.

Rochester Public Works Director Wendy Turri said the facility has the capacity to take more outside organic material. The city already processes some food waste from Hormel, as well as fats, oil and grease required to be diverted from commercial kitchens throughout the city.

She said the biggest question regarding county food waste will be whether it will efficiently produce methane, since the gas is used to heat the plan and offset energy costs.

"Hopefully we can take it, but we do need to make sure it makes sense," she said.

Another option for the county would be developing its own digester or more likely partnering with a private company to build one with the knowledge that it could produce renewable natural gas from the local waste stream.

While some companies, such as GreenRU, are already hauling food waste out of the county, Hill said the local option would likely end that practice.

"They will use it because it's cost effective for them, because it reduces travel," he said, adding that a local facility could play a regional role in diverting food waste by collecting from neighboring counties.

It's the same concept behind the planned materials recovery facility, which will allow the county to sort recyclables, rather than requiring trash haulers to take them to facilities outside the county.

While the project will start with sorting paper, plastics and other recyclables, county commissioners are already discussing potential expansion efforts related to food waste.

"I think we can become the Denmark of Minnesota, where 3% of the waste ends up in the landfill," county commissioner Mark Thein said during a recent retreat, but he also cited a need to move cautiously to ensure the most efficient process is adopted.

The county's 10-year plan points to the potential for partnering with private businesses to build a variety of related facilities on county-owned land east of the county's waste-to-energy plant and future materials recovery facility, but the proposal has met with mixed responses from commissioners.

Commissioner Michelle Rossman advocates for a broad approach aimed at drawing in new technologies on the approximately 70-acre site.

"Just as Mayo has done to be a place of medical technology, investment, creativity, etc., let Olmsted County be that with the facility we already have and our 10-year vision of where we are going," she said.

Commissioner Sheila Kiscaden urged caution, stating all the proposed facilities might not be a good mix when the nearby Quarry Hill Park and Rochester Community and Technical College campus are considered.

"I don't see an anaerobic digester here," she said, adding that the county should reserve space for other potential needs.

The county has hired a facilitator to help outline next steps and prepare a possible 10-year plan for new infrastructure, but commissioners and staff continue to weigh options.

"We need to find alternatives," Hill said of finding new ways to deal with increasing food waste.