Baselining your company’s manufacturing waste is the first step in optimizing your production systems to capture lost profit.
Make Measuring Waste a Strategic Business Decision
Waste has value, especially when it is measured and managed effectively. For manufacturers, measuring lost raw ingredients or materials within production can support elevated operational efficiencies, smart standard operating procedures (SOPs), and new training mechanisms that translate to more finished goods getting into the hands of consumers versus landing on the factory floor as non-sellable product.
TripleWin works with a diverse set of manufacturers to uncover operational efficiencies and waste reduction opportunities that energize production workforces, streamline operations, mitigate procurement costs, and lead to increased profits.
The Power of Quick Wins in Food Manufacturing
Quick Facts about Food Waste
In 2022, 33% of all food produced in the U.S. — 78 million tons — went to waste, according to ReFED.
- Nearly 15% of this food waste — 13.1 million tons, representing an economic value of $40.3 billion — was lost in manufacturing.
TripleWin Advisory was hired to develop a food waste pilot project at Bob’s Red Mill’s manufacturing facility and retail store in Milwaukie, Oregon. Through partnership with the World Wildlife Fund and the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment, the pilot sought to engage employees in identifying no-to-low-cost measures to prevent food waste in the company’s operations.
Read the full case study on how Bob’s Red Mill, the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment, and the World Wildlife Fund worked with employee owners to find and test “quick-win” solutions that yielded big reduction impacts in this detailed case study report and a Q&A with Bob’s Red Mills sustainability manager. The case study concludes with a simple five-point strategy for other food and beverage manufacturers to replicate the project in their own operations.
A Proven Process for Capitalizing on Waste
Working with manufacturers and resource conservation partners through the Pacific Coast Food Waste Commitment, we’ve developed a proven method for getting the most value from waste and the waste capture process.
Step 1: Observe
Conduct facility walkthroughs to observe the sources of loss directly with on-the-floor employees
Step 2: Ideate and aggregate
Log all waste reduction ideas into an Opportunity Register.
Step 3: Categorize and prioritize
Categorize ideas based on investment, return, and timeframe, prioritizing those with the best ROI
Step 4: Test the best
Test fast, low-cost, high-return (“quick win”) ideas to measure their impact and create excitement for larger-scale ideas.
When combined with high-quality employee education and engagement programming, this method generates financial value from captured waste while building a waste-prevention culture that pays back over the long term.
In their words
"TripleWin guided us through collecting a thorough set of data to reveal how our food waste and loss efforts can help us reach our sustainability roadmap goals. We are most excited about TripleWin’s Opportunity Register that allows us to strategically track our food waste efforts over time. We very much enjoyed working with TripleWin and would highly recommend partnering with them to help other organizations jumpstart their sustainability journeys."
Learn More about our Opportunity Register
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See Waste Audits Case Studies
