Food Waste in the Outdoor Guiding Industry: How are companies thinking environmentally and socially responsible?
By Hogan Hernandez
I never really thought about being conscious of food waste until I got to college. When I started cooking for just myself and grocery shopping on my own dime I became a lot more conscious of where my money went and how much food waste could pile up if I wasn’t thoughtful. Nothing feels worse than tossing rotten vegetables out of the fridge because you were too lazy to eat them or were busy eating out for dinner every day.
As my love for the environment and my awareness of my effect on others continues to grow my beliefs have become tied to my work life.
In the late spring, summer and early fall I spend my days guiding guests down various rivers in Oregon. I find myself lugging giant waterproof boxes of food, dragging several heavy and over-stuffed coolers and carefully carrying fragile bags full of guests’ glass containers and cans of alcoholic beverages into boats on a daily basis. Throughout this experience there are a number of tasks involved: long days of working from sunrise to sunset, 100 degree days that add to the challenge of any job, a smile on your face ready to entertain a wild group of kids splashing in the river, but most importantly — cooking several meals and appetizers a day for dozens of people while living outdoors for several days.
With the responsibility of preparing amazing meals for your new friends on the river brings other obstacles. You spend countless hours in the grocery store trying to calculate what the right amount of any product is to feed those dozens of people. Will you buy too much or too little?
The greatest responsibility that lays on a number of guides’ shoulders: how do we reduce food waste without reducing the guests’ quality of experience? Reducing food waste and garbage is a huge part of many outdoor guiding companies missions.
Ways to Avoid Food Waste While Outdoors
I have been lucky enough to work for two very different companies in my past few years as a guide. I have worked for Ouzel Outfitters for many years. Its mission is to provide its various guests with a large variety of options at each meal. Menus have to be built to please picky children as well as provide people with the feeling of a “vacation buffet.” Unfortunately, this means that we spend much of our evening scraping uneaten food off plates and pans into the garbage. There has to be a better option? In the outdoors it is best to have more food than you need in case of an accident.
I also have recently been working for a company known as Eastern Oregon River Outfitters. I have found that the two companies have almost completely opposite approaches to food waste. At eastern Oregon river outfitters, their food can be fit into a single cooler and single dry box. The companies trips are significantly smaller, include older clientele and have more set meals instead of buffet style. EORO makes a certain amount of food each night, and just about all of it is always gone. The guides serve their guests food and they eat what they are given unless they specify a dietary preference. After each trip, almost no food is thrown away. At Eastern Oregon River Outfitters the goal is to be strategic about meals, therefore cutting back on their food waste.
I believe a number of different companies in the food business could be more conscious about what they are doing with their food and where it ends up. Many companies also devote time to buying in bulk or growing their own food when possible. Planning responsibly can save a company money as well as the environment.