With hundreds of thousands of people visiting the Valley for this monthâs WM Open and Super Bowl LVII, millions of dollars are being injected into the local economy. A lot of that money will be spent on food.
So, considering Arizona leads the entire United States in the production of food waste, what can these big events teach us about how that food is prepared and how whatâs left over can be put to better use.
In an important discussion, Waste Notâs Hillary Bryant and M Culinary Concepts Partner + Director of Business Development Michael Stavros sit down to talk about using data to make better decisions when serving hundreds of thousands of meals and how excess can be best used to serve communities in need.
Watch the Project Greenprint Action Panel
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EXPERIENCE THE MEDIA MOVEMENT DRIVING POSITIVE CHANGE IN THE VALLEY
Action Panelists
Michael Stavros
Partner – M Culinary Concepts
Hillary Bryant
Executive Director – Waste Not
With an estimated $9.5 billion in thrown-away food, Arizona leads the United States in the amount of food wasted each year.
Source: Lawnstarter (2022)
BIG NUMBERS
The WM Open is our single largest event of the year. We have the privilege of serving about 230,000 people over the course of six days in hospitality areas across the course. That does not include concessions, that is purely just catering in hospitality.
We rely on historical data to figure out what has been successful in the past, what could be changed and improved upon so that we are streamlining our ordering and minimizing our waste on the front end. We’re ultimately producing, get this, 420,000 pounds of food over six days. Surely there is a little bit that’s going to be left over. Just a little. We’re working very hard to minimize that. We wanted to figure out a better solution than just throwing it away. We found that with Waste Not.
NOVEL CONCEPT
Since 2014, we’ve had the privilege of working with them [Waste Not] and supporting their mission. Doing our best to rescue. Food rescue was a new term for us. We had never heard it before. We thought it was such a great concept; What we could do to rescue that food rather than let it slip into a landfill? [When it can] go to feed Arizona’s experiencing food insecurity.
DATA-DRIVEN DECISION MAKING
The data allows us to understand what is moving and what’s not moving. Rather than simply rinse and repeat, we are refining our menus every year to identify new products that can come in and help minimize that backend waste and identify those products that hold well. Overnight, we take that food back that hasn’t been exposed to the public. That allows the opportunity for Waste Not the following day to come pick that food up and distribute it throughout the Valley. When we heard that stat that one pound feeds between one and two people, we were blown away. We realized how many people we could help.
It [also] allows us to understand that instead of 35,000 steaks we can produce 27,000 steaks and have a more effective use of that product and a better rescue plan afterward. It has made the experience for everybody involved a lot better.
DEEP IMPACT
Most importantly, the community impact resonates not only with our team, but our partners at WM, our partners at the Thunderbirds, our partners at the PGA [Tour] and the mission to make the WM Open the most sustainable event in the world. Is catching on across the world. Phoenix and Arizona are having a global impact because of this.
GOOD TEAMMATES
This is our third Super Bowl here in Arizona. NFL Green is the environmental division of the NFL and they are incredible to work with. Not only do they make sure that no food makes it to the landfill, they make sure that no materials make it to the landfill either. They’re truly zero waste.
The Super Bowl is a huge feat and landing on the same weekend as the Open. We are very, very busy right now (laugh). We are hoping to feed thousands. Last Super Bowl, we rescued about 70,000 pounds of food which equated to 58,000 meals.
GOLF FOR GOOD
During the [WM Open] and then always after the event, we will go to their facility and bring a large truck and load all that food and then immediately after, distribute that to people who need it.
