Kennebec Valley Community College culinary students recycle food waste to create value-added products

FAIRFIELD — The Kennebec Valley Community College culinary arts program is implementing a new initiative aimed at reducing food waste and challenging the program’s students to apply a spirit of innovation with their classroom skills to recycle food waste to create value-added culinary products. Utilizing surplus food from local Maine farms and in partnership with the University of Maine’s Mitchell Center for Sustainability Solutions, the initiative aims to drastically reduce food waste in Maine and educate area culinary students about designing and developing their own food-based products, all while giving back to the community.

Spearheaded by KVCC Culinary Instructor Chef Jessica Reale Raahede and UMaine’s Susanne Lee, the initiative will give KVCC’s culinary students a real-world application of the skills they’ve learned in the classroom. The students of KVCC’s first-year culinary class will work through product trials and recipe development; once they’ve developed their prototype products, they will present their samples and methodology to a virtual focus group. The focus groups are comprised of participants from the Maine Food Production Leadership Team, which includes representatives from Hannaford, Good Shepherd Food Bank and Pineland Farms. After they’ve presented their invented product to the focus group for review and comment, interested students will have the opportunity to pursue scaling up production of their idea.

Not only is the program focused on educating Maine’s future culinary leaders on reducing food waste, but it also serves as a way to give back to the surrounding community. If a student’s product ultimately achieves scaled production, the goal will be to distribute the food product to local grocery stores and food pantries under the Mainers Feeding Mainers social benefit brand.