The third annual Green Dining Alliance Food Waste Challenge celebration returned this fall — along with the first Taste of Green since 2018! Bailey’s Restaurant Group generously donated their beautiful Willow event space (adjacent to GDA-certified Bridge Tap House & Wine Bar) for this joint challenge wrap-up event and earthday365 fundraising party in downtown St. Louis.
Friends of earthday365 tasted small plates from participants in the challenge plus GDA restaurants Panorama an Bailey’s Range. Guests sipped drinks from City Winery and Willow, enjoyed music from DJ Agile One and goofed off at a photo booth. Proceeds from a prize raffle and silent auction, with items from a range of local artists and businesses, go to support earthday365’s work and mission.
Veteran challenge participants Olive + Oak and Alpha Brewing Company returned for the third year along with sophomore Sugarwitch and newcomers Crema Coffeehouse.
Crema Coffeehouse is the first cafe to participate in the St. Louis Food Waste Challenge. Crema runs an efficient kitchen and uses preservation effectively to limit overstock and preserve quality. Coffee grounds make up most of their compost, but they found little ways to keep organics from the landfill like adding paper towel-only compost bins near sinks. They reduced food costs 12% from the previous month by making smaller, more frequent orders from suppliers.
Similarly, Sugarwitch’s mostly frozen menu keeps waste of finished products to a minimum, but occasional portioning mistakes, broken waffle cones or overstock will find a second life — either on the menu or as donations to various community organizations.
Alpha Brewing continued its practice of composting customer plate scraps separately from kitchen compost, which is an effective way to track and adjust portion sizes. They diverted 100% of their bar citrus waste by prepping more carefully, less frequently and by finding uses for peels. They turned pepper scraps into taco sauce and repurposed food prepared for a cancelled event into a menu special.
Olive + Oak continued their robust reduction practices with detailed data tracking of all organics and creative techniques to extract everything usable from a product before it goes in a yellow bin. They reduced their total compost weight by over 200% during the challenge months from 2023 to 2025.
GDA performed waste assessments at Snarf’s Sandwiches on Skinker as well. Although they lacked the capacity for weekly reports and could not participate in Taste of Green, Snarf’s gave waste reduction renewed priority and the staff made major improvements. After finding an excess of discarded sandwich bread in week one, a follow-up audit found none.
GDA program manager Gillian Garland presented the findings and results of the waste challenge and each participants received certificates of recognition signed by St. Louis Mayor Cara Spencer and County Executive Sam Page. Director Jessica Watson spoke of the many successes and achievements of the organization along with some of the challenges it faces in 2025.
In one night, Taste of Green raised over $13,500 for earthday365 through the raffle, auction and in-kind donations. earthday365 and GDA extends gratitude to all attendees, Food Waste Challenge participants, GDA members and the artists and businesses that helped make the night a success. Thanks to 4Hands, MightyKind, City Winery for their contributions, New Earth Farms for handling composting and recycling, and Meridian Supply. Sincere thanks as well to the City of St. Louis and St. Louis County and our generous sponsors SWMD and Missouri DNR.
