On Tuesday, March 21, a Conestoga team participated in College Day at Queens Park. The event was hosted by Colleges Ontario and provided an opportunity for faculty and students to demonstrate their culinary and hospitality expertise to government officials, college presidents and community leaders while showcasing new techniques, technologies and innovations within the culinary industry.
On March 21, a Conestoga team participated in College Day at Queens Park. The event was hosted by Colleges Ontario and provided an opportunity for faculty and students to demonstrate their culinary and hospitality expertise. L-R students Beth Bowman and Priyanshi Rathod
The Conestoga team included students Priyanshi Rathod (Food Safety and Quality Assurance) and Beth Bowman (Culinary Management) as well as Nicole Detlor, director, Food Research and Innovation Lab, and Brad Lomanto, chair, School of Hospitality, Culinary Arts and Food Processing Technology, who demonstrated a Living Lab project that’s been underway with the support of the college’s student-run restaurant, Bloom.
The project, funded by Colleges and Institutes Canada, is co-led by Detlor and Stephen Thomson, director, Centre for Supply Chain Innovation. It aims to demonstrate the impact and solutions to greenhouse emissions as they relate to food and food waste, as well as packaging. Working with Bloom staff, the team hopes to reduce greenhouse emissions and food waste at Bloom by 50 per cent.
“The Living Lab team developed a model to determine the greenhouse gas emissions associated with each ingredient in a dish on the Bloom menu,” explained Detlor. “The model enables the chef to enter a recipe and understand its associated greenhouse gases as well as the impact of substituting ingredients.”
To share emissions information on Bloom’s menu, simple icons were placed beside each menu item indicating its greenhouse gas contribution. Going forward, the research team will investigate whether these icons influenced guests’ purchasing decisions.
During College Day, the Conestoga team served dessert tarts and shared the greenhouse gas contributions associated with the ingredients in each tart to demonstrate how our food choices can make an impact.
“We know that greenhouse gas associated with food production is complex and nuanced,” added Detlor. “Although accuracy is important, having some general rules of thumb will help us make more mindful choices.”
To learn more about the Living Lab project, visit Conestoga’s news website or the Winter 2022-23 issue of Canadian Food Business.