Spotlight on Food Recovery Network in Las Vegas

February was busy for our team at Food Recovery Network! We recovered nearly two tons of food from the Bullseye Event Group Player’s Tailgate in Las Vegas with Hellmann's and our student volunteers. That is the equivalent of 3,328 meals that were donated to The Just One Project in Las Vegas, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting food insecurity in southern Nevada.

Our recovery and partnership with Hellmann’s was featured in several news stories:

• Food Recovery Network Teams Up with Local Students to Recover Surplus Food During Super Bowl LVIII

• What happens to leftover Super Bowl food? Here’s where some of it goes

• Food Recovery Network Rescues 4,000 Pounds of Super Bowl Food

You can also read our Executive Director Regina Anderson’s perspective on what made this year’s recovery so special in her op-ed in the Las Vegas Sun.

This was our first time in Las Vegas. We were excited to be joined by two students from the University of Las Vegas, Nevada, for the recovery. While we don’t currently have a chapter in Nevada, these students are determined to bring food recovery to their campus, which sits right in the middle of one of the most decadent cities in the world.

“Food Recovery Network played an integral role in my college experience. It taught me the importance of creating strong community connections. As a member of the Syracuse University / SUNY ESF chapter, we were able to maintain meaningful relationships with local agencies in Central New York. Therefore, this unique opportunity to expand my involvement with FRN across the country as an alumni was such an exciting experience. Packaging, transporting, weighing, and recovering approximately 4,000 pounds of food with both new and old FRNds was so fun!
”

— Bridget Maloney, FRN Alumni, Syracuse University/SUNY ESF

Want to be part of the solution? You can be a part of helping us to create positive change in the food landscape in southern Nevada—far beyond the Super Bowl!

Help us bring a chapter to Las Vegas and support FRN’s mission to fight waste and feed people in every community all year long.

Scoring Big With Hellmann’s at The Big Game Tailgate Food Recovery

This year, two of the best football teams in the country faced off in an epic game to bring home coveted championship rings. At Food Recovery Network (FRN), we were vying to bring home something else: thousands of pounds of delicious, salvageable food from the annual Bullseye Event Group Players Tailgate, catered by celebrity chefs Bobby Flay and Aaron May. 

On Sunday, February 11, 2024, six volunteers, including FRN alumni and local students from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, joined FRN staff at the Players Tailgate just across the street from Allegiant Stadium to recover surplus food—both raw, fresh foods and prepared meals—and transport it for donation to The Just One Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fighting food insecurity in southern Nevada. 

Our efforts resulted in an incredible 3,994 pounds of surplus food delivered safely to our nonprofit partner, where it’ll go to produce thousands of quality meals to feed people experiencing hunger. 

The food we recovered included prepared foods, uncooked proteins, dairy, fresh produce, condiments, spices, grains, and more—ingredients that food banks and pantries don’t often receive in donations. The real kicker? This year’s tailgate recovery brought in half a ton more food than the 2023 recovery in Glendale, Arizona. We can’t thank our volunteers enough for the time and energy they contributed to make this event a success.

But the event was special in more ways than one. This year’s recovery was also our first in partnership with Hellmann’s, who contributed $100,000 to our cause of ending food waste and food insecurity across the U.S. Our Big Game celebrations continued on Monday, February 12, with the first annual celebration of “Sick Of Food Waste Day,” a new holiday declared by Hellmann’s. 

““We all have the power to ensure perfectly good food doesn’t go to waste.” ”

— Regina Anderson, Executive Director, FRN

As we expand our network of partners, we’re excited to watch our impact grow, both on college campuses and at huge events like these. The amazing thing about this work is that we can all contribute on whatever level we’re able to. Whether you’re organizing a food recovery event in your community or just reusing leftovers for another meal, we can all be a part of the fight against food waste. No matter which team you root for, we can all agree: No person in our country should go hungry.

We hope you’ll join us to help fight waste and feed people year-round.

FRN and Hellmann's Are Teaming Up for the Big Game

Food Recovery Network Teams Up With Hellmann’s to Recover Surplus Food from Big Game Tailgate in Las Vegas and Fight Food Waste in New Partnership

Las Vegas, Nev. (February 5, 2024) — Food Recovery Network and volunteers, including local college students from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, will be at the Players Tailgate at the Big Game to recover and redistribute surplus food to those experiencing food insecurity around Las Vegas. This is the fourth time Food Recovery Network (FRN), one of the largest student-led movements against food waste and hunger in the U.S., is collecting surplus food from this tailgate—and its first year in partnership with Hellmann’s. 

Hellmann’s will be contributing a $100,000 donation to Food Recovery Network to support the Feb. 11 rescue event and more. Hellmann’s will also establish Sick of Food Waste Day as part of the partnership. The day after the Big Game is known for being a major “sick” day, with 16+ million people estimated to call in “sick” from work this year. So, on Monday, Feb. 12, Hellmann’s is encouraging everyone to fight food waste and enter to win a trip to next year’s Big Game food recovery event with Hellmann’s and FRN*.

“We are thrilled to partner with Hellmann’s to fight food waste and support those who don’t have enough food to eat," says Regina Anderson, Executive Director of FRN. “44 million people are unnecessarily facing food insecurity right now, while more than 42 million tons of food goes to waste each year.”

“Hellmann’s has been working for years to make sure consumers understand the issue of food waste and how to fight it in their own homes. That’s why we’re continuing to set an example of what it looks like to reduce food waste with our new partners at Food Recovery Network,” says Chris Symmes, Senior Marketing Director, Dressings at Unilever North America.

This year’s recovery event will again occur at the Bullseye Event Group Players Tailgate in Las Vegas —catered by Food Network Celebrity Chefs Bobby Flay and Aaron May. Last year in Glendale, AZ, Food Recovery Network diverted 2,907 pounds of perfectly good, delicious, salvageable food—the equivalent of 2,423 meals—from the Big Game Tailgate to those who need it. In total, FRN has recovered over 10,000 pounds of food over the past three years in partnership with Bullseye Event Group, the host of the Players Tailgate. This year, Food Recovery Network will donate the recovered food to the Just One Project, a non-profit organization dedicated to fighting food insecurity in southern Nevada.

“Fighting food waste can happen at large events like this and in many other locations like our schools, our conferences, and our homes,” Anderson says. “We all have the power to ensure perfectly good food doesn’t go to waste, and we are excited to work with Hellmann’s—a name everyone knows—to ensure everyone understands how critical an issue food waste is and the small, simple actions you can take to make a difference.” 

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About Food Recovery Network

Food Recovery Network (FRN) is a national nonprofit that mobilizes 6,000 college students, food providers, and local businesses in the fight against climate change and hunger by recovering perishable food across the supply chain that would otherwise go to waste and donating it to organizations that feed people experiencing hunger. As one of the largest student-driven movements against food waste and hunger, FRN’s programs are on 192 college campuses and 103 food businesses in 46 states and D.C., and they have recovered more than 16.3 million pounds of food to date – the equivalent of 13.6 million meals donated to feed individuals experiencing hunger and 7,200 metric tons of CO2 emissions prevented from entering our atmosphere.

About Hellmann's  

Hellmann's is committed to helping people enjoy great tasting food for the simple pleasure it is, without worry or waste. For over a century, the brand has helped people turn even the simplest ingredients into delicious meals. Hellmann's believes in the power of taste, because when food tastes good, less of it gets wasted. This belief has driven Hellmann's to be a force for positive behavior change around household food waste. Hellmann's partnered with experts to conduct one of the longest and largest consumer behavior studies on household food waste working with 2,000 families in the U.S. and Canada gathering insights to help consumers better use the food they already have at home and to waste less. Hellmann's will continue to champion household food waste reduction through its "Make Taste Not Waste" campaigns, inspiring people to turn their left-behinds into easy, tasty meals. The past year alone, Hellmann's has been able to inspire more than 200 million people across the U.S., Canada and the UK. 

* https://www.hellmanns.com/us/en/sofw-day-sweepstakes-rules.html  

2024 Resolution: Make food recovery a priority at corporate events

With the new year approaching, now is a great time to visualize the year ahead, manifest, and sketch out a plan to reach your big goals. At Food Recovery Network (FRN), we want to see more events prioritizing food recovery in 2024! Why should food recovery be a priority at your next event? Read on!

Sustainability and Social Impact

Climate change is widely acknowledged as the greatest modern threat to humanity, so it’s no surprise that governments, companies, and individuals worldwide are taking action to reduce carbon emissions. The event industry is no exception. In recent years, sustainability has become a key component of event planning, and data shows that aside from transportation, food service is responsible for the majority of carbon emissions generated by events. For event planners seeking to create a more sustainable event, reducing food loss and waste should be a top priority, and having a food recovery program in place is the solution to meet that need. 

Not only does food recovery help prevent excess carbon emissions by keeping food out of landfills, but it also helps fight hunger by providing good food to people experiencing food insecurity. Food recovery creates both sustainable and social impact to help your company meet its environmental and community-centered goals. 

Through FRN’s Food Recovery Verified (FRV) program, our organization partners with businesses and event planners to help them establish food recovery programs from their events. Since 2021, FRN has experienced a 71% increase in inquiries from companies and organizations seeking food recovery support for their events, and we want to ensure that trend continues! So, how can you prioritize food recovery at your next event? Let’s dig in! 

How to make food recovery a priority

solidify Company Commitment

To start, your event staff and company executives must be equally committed to food recovery. Successful food recovery programs require collaboration from your event venue and/or food service provider, and sometimes it takes convincing to get them on board. This is much easier to accomplish when there is buy-in from everyone involved in the vetting and selection of venues and food service providers. 

initiate conversations with vendors

With the full commitment from your team, your company can prioritize food recovery when initiating conversations with venues and food service providers. If vendors aren’t willing to engage in food recovery efforts, your team can point to your sustainable and social goals, close the conversation, and seek other vendors to work with. If you’ve already signed a contract and your vendor pushes back incorporating food recovery into the event, get your executive leadership involved in the conversation. They can help to keep the pressure on the vendor to accommodate the program.

Of course, we often find that vendors’ concerns around food recovery can be mitigated through education and transparency with the logistical planning. As you jump into these conversations, check out FRN’s Resource Hub for information about liability protection, how-to guides, and more!

simplify the food recovery process for vendors

Finally, when you have the buy-in from your vendors, it’s helpful to make the food recovery process as easy as possible for vendors to participate. Here are some quick tips: 

• Provide your vendors with food recovery supplies 

• Find a hunger-fighting partner to take your donation

• Schedule a donation pick up directly from your venue

Eventually, food recovery will become a natural part of your event planning process, built in alongside other sustainable initiatives like recycling and composting. However, if the process feels overwhelming or you don’t know where to start, hire FRN to coordinate the program! Food recovery is what we do, and we’d love to help ensure you have a waste-free event.

Take action

Feeling inspired? Make food recovery a priority for your events in 2024!

FRN is proud to work with a variety of businesses and organizations to support their food recovery efforts, and we’ve been thrilled to see the long-term impact that some of our recurring partners have had.

Consider working with FRN to organize your food recovery efforts so you can focus on planning your event, which takes a lot!

For inquiries or more information, contact FRN’s Food Recovery Verified team: foodrecoveryverified@foodrecoverynetwork.org. We’re ready to help you reach your company’s sustainability and social impact goals this year!

Food Waste to Zero Waste!

Andy Whitehead is a Program Assistant at Food Recovery Network, and a recent MSW graduate from the University at Buffalo. As a social worker engaged in food recovery, they are passionate about changing the mindsets and attitudes people have towards food recovery as a whole. 

On October 12th and 13th, Food Rescue Hero hosted their annual Food Rescue Conference focusing on innovative and creative solutions to food recovery. This event was live streamed for all food recovery stakeholders wanting to expand their network with other food rescue leaders. 

Read about Andy’s approach to food recovery and their take-aways from the conference for like-minded student leaders.

I was excited to attend the Food Rescue Conference to learn from individuals and organizations who are also passionate about food recovery about how we can advance food rescue and food recovery in our communities. Throughout the conference there was a focus on creating strong collaboration and partnership among the huge variety of people and groups that make up the food rescue community. Working in the human service field, I have worked with a variety of organizations that include food donation or recovery in their programs, and The Food Rescue Conference was a great opportunity to learn from others about various creative solutions to the challenges of food waste and food access.

Our food system is broken in so many ways. There is stigma, personal and societal, around receiving donated food or going to a food pantry. Meanwhile, hunger-fighting groups limit the amount of food people can receive because of a belief that they may run out and not be able to serve everyone who seeks out their program. I have worked with organizations that say no when people ask for more canned goods or for a second helping of food because the organization is worried that they will run out of food, even though there is always food remaining at the end of the day. At the same time, restaurants and other food businesses don't want to donate excess food at the end of the day due to lack of staffing, partnerships, reliability, or profit. These challenges can often be addressed through a successful food recovery program, but the scarcity mindset that leads to these myths and misconceptions around food still persists, so let’s debunk this! 

First, we must shift our focus to preventing food waste, instead of simply operating a charity, so we can change our attitude towards the people we serve and our partners. There is often an assumption of powerlessness or helplessness when we think of people who are receiving food donations, going to soup kitchens, or food pantries. However, anyone can be a recipient of food donations, regardless of socio-economic status. Everyone plays a part in this food waste prevention including food donors, drivers and deliveries, volunteers, and anyone who eats! We can stop filtering who can receive donations and see everyone as a solution to the problem of excess food waste. We can break down our assumptions about people, and stop thinking of people as less fortunate and instead think of everyone as part of the solution. Our attitudes and beliefs are what give power to the system of injustice. But I need to eat, and you need to eat, just as much as anyone else. As the Food Recovery Network, a huge part of our work is focused on student leaders and higher education. Although we focus on building out non-profit partnerships and local community members, many of our own students may be experiencing hardship and food insecurity. Going hungry, does not have to mean that someone is unhoused or below the poverty line, or unemployed.

As a former college student myself, I would try to find different avenues to find free food because most of my money went towards my tuition or on-campus housing. I did not pay for a meal plan and often relied on my friends to give me their leftovers or extra meal swipes. I have privilege. I was attending a higher education institution, I always had housing, but I still was very careful and conscious as to where my next meal was coming from. By shifting our attitudes and beliefs, this can expand our view of who may be going hungry all around us and who can benefit from food recovery. Utilizing a food waste focused approach, this may also assist us to understand that those who identify as food insecure will also fluctuate and change day by day. 

We live in a world of overproduction, consumerism, and waste. Each year in the US, 119 billion pounds of food, equating to 40% of all food produced, is wasted. There should never be a reason that people are unable to eat or that  hunger-fighting programs “will not have enough”. The real problem isn’t will we have enough food, but where is the food and how can we get it to people? How can we build partnerships to expand our network and get people what they need?

how can we get surplus food to people who need it?

One solution discussed in the Food Rescue Conference is a community fridge. The community fridge offers a way for any community member to be able to access fresh, surplus food. Anyone can take as much or as little food as they need each day. These fridges operate on community support and are stocked with what food is available, when it's available. Logistics are shared by community members and food donors can drop off food on their own, or utilize food rescue delivery volunteers to put whatever they have left day to day. There is no minimum amount of food they must give and every bit helps stock the fridge. 

Another solution is reframing the values of food recovery. Students often have this idea that food recovery solely means scooping food and donating it to partners. While yes, this is a big part of food recovery, we can also get creative and bring innovative ideas to the table. Many of our chapters have shifted focus to spreading awareness and educating their community on food waste and recovery, or reaching out to businesses and farms to promote sustainability. If you run into challenges of there not being enough food at a dining hall, or administration not allowing students to recover food, think about different community partnerships to expand to. 

“To fix the brokenness within the food system, we need a more holistic approach across the board. ”

— Andy Whitehead

How can we take a more community wide approach and expand into education and advocacy to bolster the food recovery work that is already being done. Is there a way to destigmatize the need for food by promoting food to anyone and everyone. The Food Rescue Conference was a great opportunity to learn of the creative ways that these issues are being attacked across the country. Getting creative and sharing ideas in hopes of improving the issues of food waste and food insecurity together is the best way to improve the system at hand. Everyone plays a role in food waste prevention and fighting hunger, get involved at a local level through a community fridge or a non-profit nearby.

If you are a current student or know of a student at a higher ed institution that would be interested in joining a chapter or starting their own, reach out to us and we would be happy to have you join the fight against food waste.