3. Cardboard cutouts
Problems with corrugated cardboard have foodservice operators at hospitals thinking outside the box. They can sop up liquids, dirt and insects from loading docks and other surfaces during transit, leading some hospital certification boards to begin recommending bans on corrugated products.
Christopher McCracken, director of nutrition services for UC San Diego Health system, has directed his staff to debox individual items into large plastic containers—though that solution isn’t without hiccups. “If there’s ever a recall, I don’t know what’s affected because of the serial number,” he says. “Like individual [jars of] peanut butter—they don’t have that information on them.”
There’s also a freshness issue. Eric Eisenberg—corporate executive chef for nutrition, catering, retail and conference services at Seattle’s Swedish Health Services—says he directs staff to rotate old items to the top when refilling plastic boxes, but has no way of knowing if it’s happening. Plus, deboxing requires two resources operators are short on: manpower and space.
“We’re a long way from having a perfect solution,” says Eisenberg. “But I think [deboxing] is going to become a part of peoples’ regular process.”