Sodexo, Southern Connecticut State University, and Adam Equipment Partner to Reduce Dining Hall Waste

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Nov. 08, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Sodexo, a leader in quality, multichannel, and flexible food experiences, in partnership with Southern Connecticut State University’s Office of Sustainability and scale manufacturer Adam Equipment, announced today the Weigh the Waste event in honor of Sodexo’s WasteLESS week. The event, which took place on October 24 – 28, encouraged students on SCSU’s campus to monitor and minimize their carbon footprint in the dining hall.



“We’re proud to work alongside our partners in the local community to support Sodexo’s WasteLESS week,” said Tony DeLuca, general manager, Sodexo. “Even now, post event and WasteLESS week, it’s critical that we continue to support and encourage minimizing food waste in any and all ways that we can.”



During the one-week event, students scraped their unwanted food remains into a large container in the dining hall which sat atop Adam Equipment’s GFK 330a, a floor checkweighing scale. GFK features a large 15.7” by 19.7” stainless steel platform, allowing Sodexo foodservice workers to place a container on the platform for convenient weighing of up to 330 lbs. of food. The scale remained on during the entire event, allowing students to see in real-time the increase in weight with each plate.

By the end of the week, the dining hall collected more than 1,700 lbs of food waste, which will be composted.



“I think WasteLESS week was very beneficial for us students because we were able to see how much food really goes to waste,” noted Hailey Ortiz, first-year student at Southern. “This teaches us to be more mindful and reduce the amount of food that would go to waste so that there is less harm to the environment and less food insecurity for others.”



“Food waste is a serious problem worldwide and Adam is happy to play a role in helping to reduce it and spread awareness at the local level,” said Brian Thomas, Adam Equipment’s marketing manager.

Prior to the Weigh the Waste event, Sodexo at SCSU had previously worked with Adam Equipment’s weighing equipment. Through Sodexo’s partnership with Leanpath, Adam’s CPWplus platform scale is used to weigh leftover food on the line that is then distributed to the community through the Food Recovery Network. During the 2021 – 2022 academic year, Sodexo and Southern’s Office of Sustainability saved over 8,456 lbs of food from the landfill and donated it to local non-profits.



Sodexo North America is focused on preventing all forms of waste through changes in processes, consumer education, and collaboration with external partners. Sodexo aims to follow the principles of the circular economy to ensure all waste has a beneficial use and by promoting reuse, recycling, and composting to eliminate avoidable waste going to landfills. 



About Sodexo North America

Sodexo North America is part of a global, Fortune 500 company with a presence in 55 countries. Sodexo provides quality, multichannel and flexible food experiences, but also designs attractive and inclusive workplaces and shared spaces, manages and maintains infrastructure in a safe and environmentally friendly way, offers personalized support for patients or students and even creates programs fostering employee engagement. The company employs 90,066 people at thousands of sites in all 50 U.S. states, Canada, Puerto Rico and Guam, and indirectly supports tens of thousands of additional jobs through its annual purchases of $20B in goods and services from small to large businesses. Sodexo North America is committed to focusing on tangible everyday gestures and actions through its integrated services to create a better every day for everyone and build a better life for all.



About Southern Connecticut State University

Southern Connecticut State University provides exemplary graduate and undergraduate education in the liberal arts and professional disciplines. As an intentionally diverse and comprehensive university, Southern is committed to academic excellence, access, social justice, and service for the public good.

About Adam Equipment

Adam Equipment was founded in 1972. It designs and manufactures precision balances and scales for professionals worldwide. Adam Equipment’s global distribution network serves the laboratory, medical, education, industrial, legal cannabis, food, and animal/veterinary markets. Its head office is in Milton Keynes, England and has extensive operations and holdings in the United States, China, Australia, South Africa and Germany.