NACUFS 2026 Joint Session: Turning Data Into Action for Preventing Food Waste in College Dining

At the NACUFS 2026 National Conference in New Orleans, collegiate dining professionals will gather to explore the evolving future of campus hospitality. This year’s theme, Where hospitality sets the rhythm, reflects the coordination, pace, and precision required to run modern dining operations while meeting rising expectations around sustainability, cost control, and student experience.

Among the sessions featured in this year’s program is a joint microsession hosted by Illumia and Metafoodx titled:

Turning Data Into Action: Preventing Food Waste in College Dining

This session is presented by Cathy Ness, Director of Solution Engineering at Illumia, and Angel Alvarez, Senior Account Executive at Metafoodx. Together, they bring hands-on experience working with collegiate dining programs to help operators translate data into practical, day-to-day decisions that reduce waste and improve efficiency. 

NACUFS and the Role of Data in Campus Dining

NACUFS is the leading professional association for collegiate dining services across North America. Its annual national conference is a central gathering point for directors, executive chefs, sustainability leaders, and operators who are responsible for feeding millions of students every day.

Across campus dining programs, the challenges are becoming more complex. Rising food costs, labor constraints, sustainability commitments, and increasing expectations for variety and quality are all converging at once. Within that environment, food waste has become one of the most visible and costly operational issues.

Yet most food waste is not the result of a single decision. It is the outcome of many small decisions made throughout forecasting, purchasing, production, and service. That is why data has become so important. The opportunity is not just to measure waste after it happens, but to use information to prevent it in real time. 

Turning Data Into Action in the Kitchen

This PechaKucha-style microsession is designed to move quickly, using visual storytelling to show how data becomes meaningful in real kitchen environments. Instead of focusing on dashboards or reports in isolation, Cathy Ness and Angel Alvarez focus on how operators actually use information during daily service and planning.

The conversation begins with a simple idea. Food waste is often predictable when you look closely at patterns in forecasting, production, and consumption. Once those patterns are visible, they become actionable.

In many collegiate dining operations, forecasting variance is one of the first indicators of inefficiency. When planned production consistently exceeds actual consumption, it signals a gap between expectation and reality. Over time, those gaps lead to unnecessary production, higher costs, and avoidable waste. By using historical consumption trends and menu performance data, teams can begin to refine forecasting models so they better reflect how students actually eat, not just how menus are planned.

Production alignment is another key area of focus. Even with strong forecasting, many kitchens still struggle with adjusting output during service. Small shifts in student traffic, timing, or menu popularity can quickly lead to overproduction if teams do not have visibility into real-time demand. The session explores how better access to consumption data helps culinary teams adjust batch sizes, reduce excess production, and respond more effectively during peak service periods.

The presenters also emphasize the importance of feedback loops. Data becomes most powerful when it does not sit in isolation after service is complete. Instead, it should flow back into planning and purchasing decisions so that each cycle improves the next. When teams can see what was consumed, what was left behind, and how production compared to demand, they are better equipped to make adjustments that reduce waste over time. 

Real Impact Across Collegiate Dining Operations

Across higher education dining programs, this shift toward data-driven decision-making has already shown measurable results. Institutions that have focused on improving visibility into production and consumption patterns have reported significant reductions in food waste, in some cases up to 50 percent, along with meaningful cost savings driven by more accurate purchasing and production planning.

What stands out in these environments is not just the technology, but the change in operational behavior. When data is made accessible and relevant to frontline teams, it becomes part of daily decision-making rather than a separate reporting function. That shift is where the most meaningful improvements tend to occur. 

What Attendees Will Take Away

Rather than focusing on theory, this session is designed to give attendees practical ways to think about their own operations. Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of how to identify the drivers of food waste within their dining programs, how to interpret operational data in a meaningful way, and how to apply those insights to improve both purchasing and production decisions.

About the Presenters

This session is presented by Cathy Ness, Director of Solution Engineering at Illumia, and Angel Alvarez, Senior Account Executive at Metafoodx. Both work closely with collegiate dining teams to help translate operational data into practical strategies that reduce waste, improve efficiency, and support sustainability goals. 

Join Us at NACUFS 2026

The Turning Data Into Action: Preventing Food Waste in College Dining microsession will be featured at the NACUFS 2026 National Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, taking place in the microlearning theater located on the show floor in the NACUFS Theater 304 on July 16 at 3:05 -3:15 PM.

As campus dining continues to evolve, the ability to turn data into action is becoming essential. This session offers a practical look at how that shift is happening today and how operators can begin applying it in their own programs.

#NACUFS2026 #SetTheRhythm