RTI to Showcase Commercial Kitchen Food‑Waste Solutions at Climate Week NYC 2026

Restaurant Technologies (RTI), a leading provider of automated cooking-oil management systems for commercial kitchens, will participate in Food Tank's Climate Week NYC session Solving Food Waste: A Key Solution to the Climate Crisis on Monday, September 21, 2026, from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM ET at The Greene Space (WNYC-NPR Studios) in Manhattan.

Event and Partnerships

The session is presented in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Food Planet Prize, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the Walmart Foundation, CookUnity and Mill. The convening will bring together leaders from government, business, hospitality and civil society to examine how reducing food loss and waste can cut greenhouse-gas emissions, strengthen food security and build more resilient food systems.

RTI's Participation and Focus

Diana Geseking, RTI's Chief Legal Officer and Chair of the company's Impact Committee, will join the panel Food Waste Action in Commercial Kitchens and Food Service. She will outline practical, scalable steps that foodservice operators and suppliers can take to convert operational challenges into circular-economy opportunities and measurable emissions reductions.

Diana Geseking emphasized the importance of cross-sector collaboration, noting that industry, government and civil society must work together to deliver practical, scalable solutions that reduce waste and drive climate progress in kitchens worldwide.

RTI's Operational Impact

RTI supports more than 45,000 commercial kitchens nationwide — including customers such as McDonald's, Shake Shack, Sheetz and Kroger — through automated delivery, filtration, monitoring and collection of used cooking oil (UCO). In 2025 RTI recycled nearly 400 million pounds of UCO and converted almost 100% of that recovered oil into renewable diesel, biodiesel for road transport, or sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for aircraft.

Featured Speakers

Geseking will appear alongside a diverse roster of food-system and sustainability leaders, including representatives from the Walmart Foundation, CookUnity, the Culinary Institute of America, Food Tank, Brazil's Ministry of Environment and Climate Change, Compass Group USA and members of U.S. Congress.

This session aims to highlight scalable, cross-sector approaches that reduce food loss and waste, lower emissions and bolster food-system resilience — using RTI's operational model and large-scale UCO recovery as an example of industry-driven climate action.