In a stride towards food sustainability, UC San Diego Health and the Sustainability Department of Health Systems launched a new donation program in hopes of eliminating food waste in hospital cafeterias. 

Currently, UCSD Food Services manages “all cafeteria, catering and patient meal services” offering “a range of healthy, nutritious food for patients, visitors and staff,” according to their homepage.

Patients are offered a wide variety of made-to-order meals in the kitchens, with registered dietitians providing nutritional counseling to hospital patients when necessary.

As part of the newly introduced program, excess food from kitchens affiliated with UCSD Health will be sent to San Diego-based programs that serve homeless and underprivileged people. Donations from the UCSD Medical Center in Hillcrest are sent to the organization Hugs and Bags, while donations from Jacobs Medical Center in La Jolla and East Campus Medical Center are sent to San Diego Rescue Mission. 

On April 22, UCSD Director of Food and Nutritional Services Jill Martin commented on the new program in a press release. 

“We are in the process of sorting post-consumer food waste to ensure it is composted and will be modeling a system our environmental services team has in place to compost landscape waste,” she explained. “These donations ensure that none of our pre-consumer food waste is entering the landfills.”

Realizing the importance and urgency of sustainability, UCSD Health has implemented many programs, pledges, and certifications in hopes of building a better future for the region and protecting the health of their patients.  

According to UCSD Health’s homepage, the healthcare provider is the only one in the region with a designated program for sustainability. These programs target environmental issues such as sustainable food services and water systems, climate protection, and clean energy. 

Last year, UCSD Health was recognized for multiple awards from Practice Greenhealth, the nation’s leading organization dedicated to sustainability in health care. Some awards include ranking within the Top 25 Environmental Excellence Honoree and Greening the OR Recognition Award, recognizing the facility’s stride towards reducing energy use in the operating rooms, which generate 20% to 30% of a hospital’s total waste, according to UCSD Health. 

Apart from UCSD Health’s efforts in combating food waste, UCSD has an array of resources to serve students and staff who are facing food insecurity. 

The Triton Food Pantry is one campus organization that offers free produce, canned goods, and dried goods for students, with a limit of one visit at one location per week. CalFresh, California’s supplemental nutrition assistance program, provides grocery benefits based on individual needs. 

The Food Recovery Network at UCSD is another campus organization that combats food waste, redistributing food from grocery stores, restaurants, and dining halls that would have gone to waste. The organization recovered approximately 55,233 pounds of food in the 2022 academic year, serving 46,000 meals to over a hundred students per distribution. 

“I encourage students with dining dollars to be aware of the Dining Dollar Contribution Program, in which students can donate unused dining dollars to the Basic Needs Center for food insecure students,” FRN Driver and Team Lead Kailey Wilkens said. “FRN is always happy to see less food going to waste.”