Less waste, happier dirt

FOOD WASTE

Efforts are underway locally to reduce the amount of food waste going to the landfill

By Damian Mann

for the Mail Tribune

More and more table scraps are being turned into compost for gardens in Jackson County.

Rogue Produce & Community Compost collects five-gallon buckets of scraps from up to 200 households every week and delivers them to Happy Dirt Veggie Patch in Phoenix for composting.

“We pretty much pick up anything but meat, fish or yard debris,” said Adam Holtey, who owns Rogue Produce with his wife, Stephanie.

He also doesn’t accept compostable food containers because they don’t break down fast enough.

The Holteys began Community Compost in 2011 after he heard about a similar program in Santa Cruz.

“I realized at that time we weren’t doing anything of that nature locally,” he said. “I figured it was worth a try.”

Holtey said he estimates the average amount picked up at each household is roughly three gallons, so he collects around 450 gallons or more a week for delivery to Happy Dirt Veggie Patch, providing about 75% of its fertilizer needs.

Food waste is left outside front doors or at the curb at locations from Ashland to Medford, as well as in Jacksonville.

The cost to join the food waste program is $55 every three months, or about $4 a pickup.

Rogue Produce started with a little table in front of Shop’n Kart in Ashland, and the materials collected were then used at Eagle Mill Farm in Ashland.

Since then the business has expanded, and Rogue Produce now offers home delivery of local food products, including vegetables, grass fed beef and pork, eggs, sauerkraut, cheese and other products.

Home deliveries go to Ashland, Talent, Phoenix, Medford, Central Point, Jacksonville, White City, Eagle Point, Shady Cove and Rogue River.

A delivery costs $12, an amount that is waived if you sign up for a $9.99 monthly plan or a $99 yearly plan.

For more information about either the food delivery or compost programs, go to https://rogueproduce.com or call 541-301-3426.

Items that can be picked up include all non-meat food scraps and leftovers, including fruit and vegetable peelings, pits, shells and pumpkins. Rice, pasta, bread, cereal, oats as well as egg and nut shells are acceptable, though coconut shells are not. Dairy products such as cheese and butter are picked up along with coffee grounds and filters, as well as teabags.

Items that aren’t allowed include meat, yard debris, flowers, wreaths, weeds, plants or soil. Paper products, other than teabags or coffee filters, aren’t allowed.

JAMIE LUSCH PHOTOS / MAIL TRIBUNE

Matt Suhr, owner of Happy Dirt Veggie Patch, works on a compost pile at his three-acre vegetable garden in Phoenix. Above right, donated food waste is composted.

FOOD WASTE

Coal, charcoal and over-the-counter or prescription drugs aren’t accepted.

Holtey said he would like to expand his customer base to help bring down the cost of the pick-up service.

Typically the limit on the number of gallons picked up is five, but Holtey said he’s got a few customers who provide up to 10 gallons.

The material is rapidly composted at Happy Dirt Veggie Patch. “I go back a week later and it looks completely different,” Holtey said.

Not only does the program help keep food waste out of the landfill, it helps grow vegetables.

Matt Suhr, who runs Happy Dirt Veggie Patch, said, “It’s great for me because it gets delivered.”

Over the past year, the amount of food waste has increased because Market of Choice also sends its waste to his farm.

He said he mixes the food scraps with leaves, grass clippings and other debris he collects from other sources and composts it.

He amends the soil with chicken manure and other materials as well.

“In general, the compost is great,” Suhr said.

Most trash collection services offer to recycle yard waste, but other efforts are underway to reduce waste.

Rogue to Go started a service in January 2020 to provide restaurants with food to-go containers that can be used again and again after they’re run through a commercial dishwasher. Risa Buck, one of the founders of Rogue to Go, said other organizations around the country have created similar programs. Rogue to Go started with a $9,000 Oregon Department of Environmental Quality grant. The idea is a restaurant customer pays a one-time fee of $10, so food gets delivered in the reusable and recyclable container. The company started with five restaurants and now makes the containJAMIE LUSCH / MAIL TRIBUNE Matt Suhr, owner of Happy Dirt Veggie Patch, says stickers are a problem when composting food waste. ers available to 10 restaurants, eight of which are in Ashland, such as Burrito Republic and Pie + Vine, and two in Medford, Buttercloud and Common Block Brewing Company. More Medford restaurants are expected to join the program, and other cities such as Talent and Phoenix have shown interest. The containers can be used anywhere from 100 to 300 times before they are recycled by the Oregon company that produces them, OZZI. Buck said that with supply-chain issues for containers used by restaurants, she expects more demand for the OZZI O2GO containers.

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FOOD and HEALTH

Restaurant inspectors look for what the public can’t see, such as the internal temperatures of foods that are ready to eat, and cooked foods that must be chilled for storage.

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SAFETY IN NUMBERS

Baseline understanding of food safety, such as using separate cutting boards for meat and produce, can go only so far in a restaurant setting, where space restrictions for storage of potentially hazardous foods can lead to unsafe practices.

By Sarah Lemon

for the Mail Tribune

Dirty floors, dusty shelves, grimy grill hoods — all deserve hardly a glance from health inspectors evaluating the state’s restaurants.

Inspectors are looking for what the public can’t see: namely internal temperatures of foods that are ready to eat, and cooked foods that must be chilled for storage. Digital probe thermometers are inspectors’ most valuable tools. Any potentially hazardous foods — meat, dairy, eggs, seafood, cooked grains, pasta and cut-up fruits and vegetables — warmer than 40 degrees or cooler than 140 degrees have entered the “danger zone.”

An inside look at county restaurant inspections

FOOD and HEALTH

Thriving under these conditions, microorganisms that cause food-borne illness continued to pose the gravest danger to restaurant diners amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Sanitation measures, including hand-washing and cleansing surfaces, designed to prevent disease outbreaks in restaurants already were more than adequate to combat COVID, says Chad Petersen, who manages Jackson County’s Environmental Public Health Program.

“Just because COVID is here doesn’t mean you should be washing your hands any more or any less.”

Some restaurants’ reliance on gloves to minimize bare-skin contact with food took a back seat during the pandemic’s glove shortage. Health inspectors such as Petersen saw an opportunity to reiterate that gloves can create a “false sense of security” when food-service workers can’t sense from touching raw foods that they need to change their gloves — or dispose of them and wash their hands.

“Good hand-washing can really negate a lot of that fear,” says Petersen.

A public fearful of germs lurking on solid surfaces also drove developments in new sanitizers recently approved for restaurant use, says Petersen. Alcohol- and acid-based formulas are showing up alongside the food service industry’s standard chlorine bleach and quaternary ammonium compounds, he says.

And new equipment, primarily used in fast-food restaurants, isn’t only minimizing contact with food, says Petersen. Corporate chains are constructing such systems to address a nationwide shortage of workers, he says. While customers may experience the lack of restaurant staff through longer wait times, or even dining room closures at locations with drive-thru windows, health inspectors more than ever must be educators, over enforcers, says Petersen.

“Every time my inspectors go into a facility, it’s like starting all over again,” says Petersen.

“You used to depend a lot more on stable management,” he says. “A lot of that essential knowledge … is disappearing.”

Baseline understanding of food safety, such as using separate cutting boards for meat and produce, can go only so far in a restaurant setting, where space restrictions for storage of potentially hazardous foods can lead to unsafe practices, says Petersen. Managers must be vigilant against failures of heating and cooling equipment, as well as improper employee procedures. A workplace ethic — upheld by management — of not just passing an inspection but acing the evaluation sets the region’s highest-performing restaurants apart.

Performing less than half of its normally scheduled inspections last year, Petersen’s staff was slim during the pandemic and was also working through a backlog from 2020, when state regulators advised against on-site verification of restaurant sanitation. With the county’s return to full-time inspections, some of its 785 licensed establishments underwent their first inspection in two years. Ordinarily, inspections are required every six months. Restaurants begin their inspections with 100 points, from which inspectors deduct for violations, categorized as “priority,” “priority foundation” and “core.” The first designation directly prevents food-borne illness; the second entails management’s specific actions, equipment or procedures that control risk; the third relates to cleanliness, maintenance and facility design. Violations warrant deductions of three to five points The vast majority of apiece, and the penalty for repeat violations is double. Restaurants restaurants score in also must undergo reinspections for priority violations to ensure the high 80s or 90s, compliance. “They want to do the right says Petersen, and thing,” says Petersen of restau rants’ attempts to adhere to a handful fail each year. Held to the sanitation standards. If more than 30 points are deducted during an inspection, the same standards as facility has “failed to comply” and must post a state-issued notice to brick-and-mortar that effect. Inspectors remove the facility’s notice when it passes a counterparts, reinspection, usually a week later. A restaurant is not required to close the county’s 166 mobile food units when it’s failed to comply. The vast majority of restaurants score in the high 80s or 90s, says also are inspected Petersen, and a handful fail each year. Held to the same standards semiannually. as brick-and-mortar counterparts, the county’s 166 mobile food units also are inspected semiannually. Among pandemic success stories, the county’s food trucks increased about 15% in 2021, reflecting steady growth for the past few years, says Petersen. While wondering at what point the market for mobile eateries is saturated, Petersen says he thinks some of the new endeavors reflect a pandemic-fueled desire for self-employment. And despite several highly publicized restaurant closures locally, says Petersen, the number of fixed-location establishments is largely unchanged since the pandemic. Factor in corporate chains’ new construction with the region’s existing food service facilities, and “there’s always kind of a net gain,” he says. “For every restaurant that goes out of business, that is prime real estate for somebody else,” says Petersen. “There’s always somebody who thinks they have better barbecue than you.”