Food With Purpose Change Maker: Chef Carl Vollmer on Reducing Food Waste
As the Chef Manager of the Americas Headquarters of a German-owned corporation, Carl Vollmer received a report from his client’s team in Germany last year that shocked him and drew out his competitive edge. Carl was immediately motivated into action when he saw a report that revealed the European campus was producing a shockingly low amount of food waste.
“My first thought was, they serve three times as many guests as we do in Ohio, how are they doing it?” exclaimed Carl.
Reducing food waste has always been a focus for Carl, especially after he spent 15 years as a chef for hotels and convention centers.
“The waste in that environment is staggering and that’s even with composting and donating to shelters,” explained Carl.
When Carl took the top position at his marketplace, it felt fated that his client’s corporation follows its German parent, valuing simplicity and a commitment to sustainability. He even sits on a conservation board with his client team and has a captive audience with the employee population.
In the past fourteen months, under Carl’s leadership, his crew slashed food waste with the roll out of our proprietary Waste Not 2.0 food waste tracking program and smart culinary engineering. The story of how they’re doing it is where the creativity lies.
CREATIVE COLLAGING
As a company, we have committed to reduce food waste by 50% by 2030, and we continue to find ways to make a difference by reducing food waste at the source. What stands out with Carl’s team is that they have shifted the mindset of mundane leftovers to creative “collaging” where overproduced items are turned into new and exciting creations.
The salad bar, for example, is home to odd parts of produce and culinary ingenuity. “We save carrot and parsnip peels, as well as mushroom stems to fry them up as a crunchy salad toppers – guests love them.”
“We try a lot of things and it’s always the unexpected creations that turn out to be the best,” said Carl.
Chef Carl has also forged a partnership with a nearby organic farm to repurpose unavoidable food waste to feed chickens and recently started working with GoZERO on compost services. The creative ingenuity also extends to the animals owned by the employee population. Every Friday, a handful of people bring in five-gallon buckets to fill up with compost for chicken feed. Another person collects coffee grounds and biodegradable coffee filters for her goats.
CHANGE MAKER
Being recognized as a change maker is humbling to Carl, who embraces challenges naturally.
“I’ve worked my way up from a pastry chef at the bottom of the ladder in hotels to executive chef and, along the way, I heard plenty of people say ‘you can’t do that’ and my reaction was aways ‘watch me’,” explained Carl.