On December 23 1993, KCBS Radio broadcast a special report entitled “Gourmet Garbage”. Reporter Mike Sugerman looked into the amount of food wasted by the food service business, at a time when public attention was focused on the growing problems of hunger and homelessness. As part of his research, Sugerman spent time peering into trash cans behind stores, hotels, and restaurants.

The anchor lead-in read: “A lot of Bay Area food is getting trashed these days—literally. Every day, tons of good food is being dumped by commercial kitchens in restaurants, hotels, catering services, and other places that feed a lot of people. And every day, thousands of other people in the Bay Area are going hungry, more now than at any time in the recent past. Critics say if chefs would only save the food they are now wasting, there would be little hunger in the Bay Area.  KCBS Reporter Mike Sugerman spent some time investigating the tasty trash problem and has put together this in depth special report: ‘Gourmet Garbage’.”