#FreeTheFoodDashboard

Dashboard - ​LA Food Waste Grant Challenge 
Heather Repenning, VP Commissioner of LA City Board of Public Works
Wendy Renteria, City of LA DPW
What?
What is the Dashboard? #FreeTheFoodDashboard is designed and hosted by Bioproducts Innovation Center as an administrative grantee for LA DPW.  The Dashboard profiles 7 projects  with dozens of sites throughout the City of Los Angeles in order to increase awareness of actions underway to reduce food waste. To learn more about each project and the three administrative grantees, please select from the list below: 
Who?
Who is on Bioproducts Innovation Center's #FreeTheFoodDashboard?
Why?
Why collect project metrics on #FreeTheFoodDashboard? 
​#FreeTheFood Challenge focuses municipal resources on localized actions to support the goals of the LA Food Waste Challenge Grant, aligned with ZeroWaste LA and related sustainability initiatives.  As with all initiatives, three factors will optimize beneficial outcomes:
  • Define Problem: increasing gap between the ideals of ZeroWaste and the reality of current food waste
  • Focus Awareness: increasing public knowledge of this gap
  • Build Solutions: increasing sense of local ability to narrow this gap through community action and project development​
How?
How do we collect, analyze and visualize project data?
  • The top-level #FreeTheFoodDashboard provides the entry point to understand overall goals and objectives.  
  • Each project dashboard presents its own qualitative + quantitative metrics introduced by PRODUCTS and self-reported by the projects as integral to achieving their project goals.  Through these project collaborations, localized initiatives can be analyzed in order to optimize meaningful outcomes through the lens of local stakeholders.  
  • Products Innovation Center collects, aggregates, and analyzes data from all the projects along with qualitative achievement factors.  CBIC produces data visualizations and sustainability metrics useful to assist with key learnings for future Zero Waste LA along with related regional, national and international sustainability programming.
How do we report on Bioproducts Innovation Center analysis of qualitative and quantitative data analysis from the #FreeTheFood projects?
  • Culminating report:
When?
April 23, 2018: Mayor's Earth Day event at Getty House, LA:
  • Bioproducts Innovation Center's 8-page report (SEE ABOVE SECTION How?): "#FreeTheFood, #FeedTheSoil, #FeedThePeople", an interim report to Heather Repenning, VP Commissioner of LA City Board of Public Works, April 22. 2018.
March 5, 2018:
January 26, 2018: Internal launch of #FreeTheFood projects and Commissioner Repenning @ City Hall
January 10, 2018: Orientation with project grant awardees and Commissioner Repenning @ City Hall
Sankey diagram: weighted flows
Sankey diagram A: ECMS & GSF SCHOOL & COMMUNITY KITCHENS​: This Sankey diagram models relative amounts of food consumed, composted, recovered and wasted at school & community kitchens during food prep, service counter and food tray stages of meal delivery. In this way, source reduction of food waste will be updated by incorporating actual project metrics, thereby measuring beneficial outcomes for the Zero Waste LA initiatives (#FreeTheFood), namely food recovery and food scrap compost through projects underway.
NOTE: the JACCC projects do not exclude meat food scraps from the Bokashi Compost recipe.
Sankey diagram B: LACGC, LACC, Proyecto Jardin HOME KITCHENS: This Sankey diagram models relative amounts of food consumed, composted, and wasted home kitchens during food prep and food plate stages of mealtimes at home. In this way, source reduction of food waste will be updated by incorporating actual project metrics, thereby measuring beneficial outcomes for the Zero Waste LA initiatives (#FreeTheFood), namely food scrap compost through projects underway.  
​NOTE, in Home Kitchens, the model shows no food recovery, because untouched food saved from meal to meal is simply served again at the next meal or snack, either in the same recipe or a new recipe, rather than distributed through an official food recovery program.
Quote
Quotes from City of LA leadership related to #FreeTheFood and related SmartCity initiatives:​
  • "Please try to maximize food recovery in all of your projects" - Heather Repenning, VP Commissioner of LA City Board of Public Works at Orientation session
  •  “Numbers tell compelling stories, and they help us find answers that make a real difference in people’s lives,” said Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti. “It is an honor to receive this [What Works Cities] award for L.A.’s success in using data to improve how we target and deliver services — and we’re grateful for what the partnership with Bloomberg Philanthropies has helped us accomplish for communities across our city.” - excerpted from January 25, 2018 award announcement What Works Cities
Goals / Metrics
metrics  > numbers:   4 ways 2 win:
         Connect, Engage, Divert, Transform:  #FreeTheFoodMetrics (project, aggregated) designed to amplify the capacity of hyper-local projects
  • CONNECT: direct & social media followers, 2nd tier connections and methods (email, online calendar, online forum, word of mouth)
  • ENGAGE: # of training sessions (try to diversity location, target audience, time of day), # of people attending, # of newcomers to events
  • DIVERT: how much and how was the organics diverted at the source? edible food recovered? non-edible collected for compost/bokashi?
  • TRANSFORM: how was behavior transformed? how many people actually scooped up healthy soil? how much compost was generated in volume? how many acres of gardens were within reach?
​
TARGETS: Drafts in progress:
Targets: Projects reporting in as of April 22, 2018:
Targets:  draft as of March 5, 2018:
Benchmarking
BIOPRODUCT Benchmark Integration: Los Angeles Sustainable City pLAn + 3 Milan Food Paradoxes: (See BIOPRODUCT Admin Dashboard for more)
Global Benchmarks: analysis as of May 16, 2018:
Pics