A reality that all restaurants and food service providers contend with every day is food waste. To some extent, it's an inevitability, but throwing away food is a tough pill to swallow. We can't help but think about all the work that went into growing and producing each ingredient, the time and skill it took our team to prepare it, and all the ways it could be put to better use.
In the 26 years Red Hen has been baking, every loaf of bread has either been sold, donated, or enjoyed by a local farm animal. No bread has ever made it as far as the compost or the landfill. How is this possible?!
Gleaning:
Gleaning is the process of collecting food from farmers and producers that would otherwise go uneaten and redistributing it to the community. Every week, volunteers from Community Harvest of Central Vermont come collect unsold bread and deliver it to food shelves, senior centers and free community meal sites. In 2024, thanks to the hard work of these volunteers, CHCV donated 103,509 pounds of local food to Vermonters in need.
Red Hen Donations:
Not including our contributions to Community Harvest, we have donated 945 loaves of bread and 814 pastries to local events, fundraisers and organizations so far this year. When we end up with extra loaves or unsold pastries, we toss them in the freezer and offer them up for things like teacher's appreciation days, Green Up Day, Town Meeting Days, local food shelves, camps, community building events, and more.
Von Trap Farm:
One man's compost is another cow's dinner. Loaves that have gone a bit too stale for human consumption are picked up by Von Trap Farm in Waitsfield for their very lucky cows and pigs to feed on.
Vermont Compost:
While we haven't had the need to compost any of our unsold bread, we do produce other food scraps in the cafe like coffee grounds, onion skins, etc. All of this goes to Vermont Compost Company in Montpelier, which doubles as a farm and provides our cafe with local eggs. With all the food scraps, they have no need to buy feed for the chickens!
We're very proud of the ways we've been able to do some good while reducing food waste, but it is only possible because of the organizers, volunteers and citizens of our community who are equally as passionate.