My significant other work at a school during Covid where they were giving free breakfasts and lunches.
The waste I witnessed from it all was atrocious, due to the fluctuations from day-to-day how many students would come in. The staff always wanted to err on the side of caution, because they didn’t want any kids to miss out. We’re talking sometimes over 200 lunches that were discarded in a day. Some things could be reused, but a lot was thrown away.
It was against the rules to do anything but either give them to a student, or throw them away.
It sounds like there were a few problems identified.
* Against the rules to hand them out to non-students (even after some priority window)
* Operating in an unusual context where relative load is highly unpredictable
* No system of reservation to try to forecast load
There's also a bunch of data that's absent, like any potential causes for the variable load. Plausibly it might have been weather related, or related to families participating in a cultural event that's special even if they were celebrating in quarantine at home.
The first is food regulation and safety law; the same applies to restaurants who serve buffet style as well.
The second isn't going away. Attendance is spotty at best in underperforming schools, in particular the ones that need free lunch the most. Many kids also won't eat some foods. The amount of waste just gets shifted from "too much prepared" to "not enough served food was eaten".
The third is just an attempt to solve the second, but if there was a system of reservation in place, it would still be part of the problem- after all, what we're trying to solve is that parents aren't utilizing the already available free lunch programs because going through the means testing is too much effort for them.
>The first is food regulation and safety law; the same applies to restaurants who serve buffet style as well.
This, food waste is built into the system. It'd be nice if it wasn't but every restaurant and cafeteria throws away just as much food as they sell, most people just don't realize it because they've never worked in food service.
>The waste I witnessed from it all was atrocious, due to the fluctuations from day-to-day how many students would come in.
The waste is just a necessary component even in for profit systems. It's still better to feed everyone than to not. Even if the only thing you are allowed to do is to give to students, then you send them home with several meals worth to use up the leftovers.
