"Innovations" Case Studies: Food Waste Recovery

San Francisco Commercial Food and Organics Recycling Case Study

In San Francisco, a variety of programs divert food discards from the commercial sector.

Redistribution of Edible Foods to Food Service Agencies. The San Francisco Food Bank collects and redistributes edible discarded produce and other food; Food Runners (mostly volunteer) collect and redistribute prepared foods from restaurants.

Recovery of Food Processing Waste and Inedible Produce by Farmers as Animal Feed. Dairy farmers pick up food processing waste (such as brewery grains and tofu residuals) as well as the inedible produce sorted by the food bank. The farmers use the food discards as dairy and heifer feed.

Recovery and Processing of Dry Bakery Discards into Animal Feed Products. Dext Feed (San Jose) collects discarded bread, flour, and other dried bakery products in the San Francisco area.

Collection of Food Service Grease and Meat for Rendering. Four rendering companies serve San Francisco, including Darling International based in the city.

On-Site Composting of Cafeteria Food Discards at Schools and Universities. San Francisco State University and San Francisco City College each have an in-vessel composting program. Ten schools (mostly elementary) have small-scale vermicomposting programs.

Collection and composting of food and other organics from the commercial sector. Two haulers, Sunset Scavenger Company and Golden Gate Disposal & Recycling Company, offer collection service. Each use different collection approaches. Organics are delivered to the Sanitary Fill Company transfer station and then hauled to the B&J composting facility in Dixon, 65 miles away. All four companies are wholly owned subsidiaries of Norcal Waste Systems.

Hundreds of food-related businesses are involved in one or more of these diversion efforts. More than 300 businesses and institutions are included in the composting collection programs alone. Nearly 3,000 tons per year of excess edible food are diverted from landfill disposal. Of this, almost 700 tons is produce alone.

Diversion through animal feed (including rendering) is more than 21,000 tons per year. Diversion through commercial composting collection was more than 10,000 tons per year for 1999 and continues to grow. In all, the city diverted more than 37,400 tons of commercial organics in 1999. This represented approximately 33 percent of the organics generated by the commercial sector and about 3 percent of the city’s overall commercial waste stream (including construction and demolition materials).

Table 3: San Francisco Commercial Food and Other Organics Diversion Results

*Based on data from earlier years. Estimates are conservative.
Source: Jack Macy, San Francisco Solid Waste Management Program (February 2000).

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The City’s Role

The City and County of San Francisco’s solid waste management, through its recycling program (SFRP), has provided assistance in developing, implementing, and expanding many of these programs. Partnerships have been developed with the San Francisco Food Bank, San Francisco’s garbage collection companies, regional composting facilities, dairy farmers, and local colleges, among others. The SFRP helped with the planning and development of these programs, and it also provided funding for equipment, outreach, and technical assistance in program implementation.

The city, for instance, contracts with Applied Composting Consulting, Inc., to provide on-site organics recycling training, monitoring, and assistance to commercial food waste generators. The city also provided technical assistance to schools, mostly start-up training and help with operating their worm bins.

Through its grant program, the city has picked up the major portion of the capital costs for the in-vessel composting systems installed at the San Francisco State University and at City College. Food Runners and the San Francisco Food Bank have received city grants too.

Edible Produce and Other Food Redistribution

In May 1996, the San Francisco Food Bank started five-day-per-week collection of edible food from 25 wholesalers at the San Francisco Produce Terminal. Since then it has expanded to other wholesalers in the city. (Previously it collected produce twice a week.) Participating businesses benefit from the program by reducing their garbage costs and claiming a tax deduction for donated food.

The food bank collects food in its original packaging, as long as it is mostly edible, and transports it in a refrigerated truck to its warehouse where volunteers separate edible food from inedible food. More than 70 percent of the produce collected is delivered directly to member organizations that feed thousands of people daily in San Francisco.

A dairy farmer from Sonoma County picks up the inedible or spoiled produce from the food bank. He travels about 50 miles and picks up a 30-cubic-yard rolloff several times a week. The produce has enough value to provide this service free of charge. He blends the organics into his dairy and heifer feed (using up to 10 percent produce in his mix). He also sells the material to other farmers in the area.

The food bank has collected and diverted more than 1,300 tons of produce from San Francisco in the last two years (1998 to 1999) and is now diverting produce at a rate of 700 tons per year. Of this amount, more than 500 tons are redistributed as edible food, and almost 200 tons are used as dairy and cattle feed.

Sunset Scavenger’s Collection Service

In August 1996, Sunset Scavenger started collecting produce that the food bank could not use from 25 wholesalers at the produce terminal. Sunset Scavenger’s source-separated collection and composting program has since expanded to more than 270 businesses, including wholesalers, large supermarkets, produce markets, juice bars, restaurants, and floral/plant shops. In addition to segregated produce, the company collects all types of food discards, floral and other plant trimmings, soiled paper, wooden produce crates, and waxed corrugated cardboard. Customers who segregate their produce can benefit from lower service rates.

Sunset Scavenger provides each participating business with a dedicated green container for source-separating their vegetative food and other acceptable organics. Relatively small generators are provided 32- and 64-gallon toters; large generators are provided 1, 2, and 3-cubic-yard containers.

The 3-cubic-yard containers are only for light produce. All toters and bins are covered and locked to avoid vector and odor problems as well as scavenging and illegal dumping. Pickup frequency varies from one to six times a week, depending on each business’s needs. Sunset uses front-loading trucks that have been adapted to pick up toters.

Initially Sunset Scavenger delivered the produce to the Richmond Sanitary Composting Facility. This facility windrow-composted the organic material along with other yard trimmings it received. Sunset now delivers its organics to Norcal’s B&J composting facility in Dixon (65 miles northeast of the city). The facility is permitted to take all food material, including meat and postconsumer residuals.

This facility utilizes the Ag-Bag in-vessel technology. The Richmond Sanitary Composting Facility, which is only permitted to handle produce and no other food discards, played a key role in making the program work. The facility found that adding food to its yard trimmings sped up and improved the composting process and resulted in higher-quality compost.

In 1999 Sunset Scavenger’s composting program diverted more than 6,400 tons of material. During the year, the company increased the number of participating businesses and monthly tonnage. At the beginning of 1999, it had 177 customers. By the end of the year, it had 252.

In early 2000, the company was adding more than 15 customers per month (most growth is in the restaurant sector). Sunset has set a goal of adding 200 accounts per year (for at least three more years) and diverting at least 13,000 tons per year through its composting collection program. It also aims to add all food collection to its food service customers.

Golden Gate Disposal & Recycling Company’s Organics Collection Service

Golden Gate Disposal & Recycling Company (GGD) collects about 10 to 15 tons per day of source-separated “all food” scraps (pre- and postconsumer). The company collects seven days per week from more than 60 generators. Its customers are mostly markets and restaurants in the city’s Chinatown, North Beach, and Fisherman’s Wharf area. The large St. Francis Hotel recently joined the program (its food discards are not included in the above tonnage figures).

This dedicated food route grew out of an old swill collection route that GGD inherited from a hog farmer. He had been collecting food waste from these businesses every day for many years and bringing it to his hog farm in the Central Valley near Lodi. When the farmer went out of business, he offered the route to GGD, which saw it as a great opportunity to get into the food recycling business, provided GGD could find a market for the material. After other hog farmer and composting facility options fell through, GGD eventually was able to bring food discards to the B&J composting facility, when it received a permit to compost all food material.

GGD is experimenting with different collection approaches to minimize its customers’ source-separation effort and costs. In addition to its collection of source-separated organics, GGD offers collection of organics mixed with other trash to some of its food waste generating customers. GGD asks that they do a good job of recycling bottles and cans. GGD does not offer its customers a rate incentive to source-separate organics. Thus, its new collection strategy keeps glass contaminants out of the compost but simplifies customers’ set-out requirements.

These customers may not even be aware that their garbage is being composted. Because their garbage is typically high in organics, it generally has been within acceptable contamination levels for the composting facility. Because Golden Gate’s sister company, Sunset Scavenger, emphasizes clean, source-separated organics, it dilutes the effect of Gold Gate’s less clean materials.

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Costs, Economics, and Benefits

The city’s costs cover staff time for the organics recycling coordinator and an associate. Table 4 lists other costs the city has incurred in developing programs to recover organics from the commercial sector. Since 1996 these costs have totaled almost half a million dollars. Grants to the food bank account for $258,600.

The city’s contract with Applied Compost Consulting, Inc. represents another $130,000 and spans three years (1996-99). The city renewed this contract for $150,000 (for another three years). The work of Applied Compost ranges from program planning, surveying customers, and analyzing customer savings and other data to training, monitoring, follow-up, and outreach with customers.

Sunset Scavenger’s composting program costs are estimated to be less than $100 per ton. This includes collection, transfer, haul and compost facility tipping fees, outreach, and training. (Trash costs are about $150 per ton.) As an incentive to participate, businesses that just separate produce pay 25 percent less for produce collection than for garbage collection. These businesses can thereby reduce their overall disposal costs when they sufficiently reduce their garbage quantities and service. All-food collection service costs customers the same rate as trash.

Table 4: City of San Francisco’s Costs

Source: Jack Macy, San Francisco Solid Waste Management Program (February 2000).

Benefits of this program are manifold. Produce businesses save money through lower trash costs as well as through their tax-deductible donations to the food bank. Food service agencies save money through reduced purchases; they also boost the nutritional value of the food they serve. Farmers save money on feed costs. Composting facilities produce higher-quality compost through this program.

Some of the finished compost comes back to the city to be marketed as “Urban Earth” through the San Francisco League of Urban Gardeners. The city, through its efforts, also helps increase recycling and diversion of valuable materials from landfill disposal.

Sunset Scavenger and Golden Gate Disposal & Recycling become more effective and successful recycling companies. They have created innovative programs and have shown a good faith effort to help the city meet the requirements of the California Integrated Waste Management Act (AB 939, Sher, Chapter 1095, Statutes of 1989 as amended [IWMA]). They benefit by establishing themselves as the provider for these needed services.

The experience of two produce terminal vendors--Cooks Company and DeMatti Brothers--illustrates the cost-effectiveness to participating businesses. Cooks Company cut its trash bill by 45 percent within four months of joining the program. DeMatti Brothers reduced the size of its trash container by half and reduced the number of trash pickups from four a month to two a month, reducing its trash bill by 10 to 15 percent. Many produce markets and restaurants have reduced their trash by 90 percent and are saving up to 50 percent on their trash bills.

Some customers that had previously relied on sending their produce waste down the drain (to the sewage treatment plant) have switched to the organics program because of cost savings in their water bill.

Challenges and Opportunities in Implementation

One challenge the program faced was getting food waste generators to understand that participating was not hard. Many thought that separating food discards would take extra time and effort and be a nuisance. The city and its haulers are overcoming this challenge by making the collection convenient (such as through providing bins and/or simplifying sorting), providing rate incentives, working with businesses to reduce trash (and thus costs), and providing technical assistance and training.

Language obstacles were another challenge. San Francisco has a high non-English speaking population. The city produced bilingual and trilingual outreach materials.

Limited indoor and outdoor space presents a challenge for some food waste generators. The city has found that usually where there’s a will, there’s a way. Businesses can be creative in where they place containers to collect food discards. The city’s organics recycling program manager maintains that if businesses in San Francisco can do it, anyone can do it.

Illegal dumping has been a problem in some locations. Other businesses not participating in the program dump trash in the organics bins. The city, its consultant, and its haulers emphasize that outdoor organics bins of all sizes should be locked. This has cut down on the illegal dumping problem. Sunset Scavenger provides locks for its customers’ containers.

Odor and vector issues have not presented much of a problem. If they do, haulers can increase pickup frequency. Fewer than 5 percent of customers have complained about odor. These odors are primarily found in juice bars, which have extremely wet materials that decompose rapidly. Several customers that use trash compactors have actually reduced odors emanating from trash as a result of switching to organics collection and having the organics containers collected more frequently.

Washing out containers is the customer’s responsibility. While the city, its haulers, and the composter want to avoid the use of plastic bags, the bags can be screened out at the composting facility. The city and its partners are currently evaluating biodegradable bags, but these bags are more expensive than conventional plastic bags and may end up being screened out anyway.

One clear opportunity for the city to increase diversion further is to bring more food waste generators into the program. Less than 400 of the 7,000 food waste generators are now participating. The city has targeted the major generators (all wholesalers, all produce markets, food-service businesses, and large restaurants).

The fact that 33 percent of all organic material in the commercial waste stream is being diverted is testimony to the success of these efforts. Yet, opportunities to expand exist. Many large hotels, for instance, do not recover their food discards. The city has estimated that another 45,000 tons per year could be diverted if its commercial food recovery programs were expanded.

Funding Mechanisms

The composting programs of Sunset Scavenger and Golden Gate Disposal & Recycling are funded through the garbage rates they charge their customers. The city’s funds also come from the garbage rates.

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Last updated: December 23, 2009