UA students cook up food-recovery program

Lunchtime had just ended in the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s Pomfret Dining Hall, but there was still plenty of food left to feed more — and it would, thanks to a student-led effort.

Volunteers carefully packed more than 25 pounds of leftover meatballs and about 10 pounds of pasta into several aluminum pans, writing on each the date and then placing them inside a walkin cooler. Bins of rice, squash and spinach provided more food, and volunteers packed up a tray full of pizza — items all scheduled to be delivered later to local nonprofit agencies such as The Salvation Army of Northwest Arkansas.

“I’m just surprised with how much we collect,” Madeleine Chaisson, a student volunteer, said on a recent Monday when a team of three students collected 137 pounds of food that would otherwise have been thrown away.

Volunteers began collecting food from Pomfret Dining Hall in October, after about

a year of working with dining-services company Chartwells to establish a protocol for reusing foods to avoid waste.

Food recovery, as the practice is commonly known, has also been the focus of a UA School of Law program that looks into potential liability concerns for participants and at policy matters. With help from a $225,000 grant from Tyson Foods Inc. that was announced this month, UA plans to host an informational training conference to help other college campuses interested in starting food recovery programs to reduce waste. The grant also will be used to support an on-campus food pantry and food-recovery efforts.

“Basically, from a legal standpoint, it’s a very low-risk activity done right. And from a sustainability, environmental and social responsibility standpoint, it has enormous, enormous benefits,” said Nicole Civita, a visiting assistant professor and director of the law school’s Food Recovery Project.

She noted that federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency actively encourage food recovery. Efforts at UA were recognized by the EPA with a regional award this year.

Food left to rot in a landfill releases methane, considered by scientists to be a greenhouse gas.

“From the EPA’s standpoint, every time we toss out food, we’re tossing out resources, and we’re hastening the warming of the planet,” Civita said.

At UA, student volunteers work under the name Razorback Food Recovery.

Their first pickup of any kind took place in February, starting with packaged sandwiches and snacks at the Arkansas Union.

In that first month, about 170 pounds of food were collected, said Madeline Phillips, student chairman for the program.

“This past month, if you combine Pomfret and the union, it was about 1,700 pounds, so I’d definitely say that’s a huge increase,” said Phillips, a junior studying animal science and agricultural business.

Part of the recovery effort involved building trust with Chartwells. At Pomfret Dining Hall, students now have their own corner of a spacious kitchen to use as a work station. Food staff members take leftovers from the serving line right to the volunteers.

Phillips, Chaisson and graduate student Claire Allison worked efficiently on a recent Monday afternoon. The dining hall’s assistant director, James Lewis, carried over a container of cranberry sauce.

“We try not to overproduce, but it’s just inevitable,” Lewis said. “That’s a part of food service.”

Such cooperation took time to develop, student leaders said.

“We spent probably about six weeks really working with Chartwells trying to get this off the ground,” said Allison, a graduate assistant with UA’s Center for Community Engagement. The center advises the student-led board of the Volunteer Action Center, which adopted the Razorback Food Recovery program in January to provide support.

The center also supports UA’s Full Circle Food Pantry, with some of the food that’s collected delivered to the on-campus food distribution center.

Civita said the law school program was developed out of a recognition that food businesses may be hesitant to release items out of legal concerns.

But, she said, food recovery efforts have legal protection through a 1996 federal law known as the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act. The law shields donors and food “gleaners” from legal liability as long as the food is “apparently wholesome” and no gross negligence is involved in handling the food.

Over the past decade or so, some college campuses have become involved with food recovery, Civita said. The UA School of Law effort began in the fall of 2012, when it received a $12,000 grant from the UA Women’s Giving Circle to produce a legal guide on the topic, Civita said. The 12-page document was published in July 2013, and a website was added to provide more information.

Importantly, Civita said, no lawsuits turned up in a search for cases associated with the activity of food recovery. At UA, creating the Razorback Food Recovery program has involved developing a structure and practices that include training for student volunteers and a focus on collaboration with Chartwells.

“We started with retail food to kind of build this partnership with Chartwells, to kind of prove to them that we could do it,” Allison said.

Putting the program together also involved making sure there would be plenty of volunteers willing to work, as well as having Chartwells’ staff provide some basic training on handling food. Students in the dining hall kitchen wear hats or hairnets, as well as vinyl gloves. Rubberized shoe coverings are also required, and students are careful to cool down the hottest food items to prepare them for storage to avoid contamination.

It’s been a learning experience, the volunteers noted. For example, the group first tried to make do with a conventional refrigerator to store food.

“Within the first couple of weeks, that was getting full to bursting,” said Allison, adding that it’s unclear how much food gets wasted on campus.

The protocol in place includes weighing items to track how much food is recovered, information shared with Chartwells. Civita said if the numbers prove to be eye-opening and lead to less food being cooked in the first place, that’s ideal from an environmental perspective.

The Razorback Food Recovery effort’s short-term goals include increasing the number of days to pick up food at Pomfret Dining Hall, with Philips noting that there has been a rush of students eager to volunteer. Students now pick up food three times a week.

Talks are underway with Chartwells to potentially expand the effort to UA’s two other full-service dining halls and the company’s catering efforts.

Civita said food recovery is a growing trend nationwide. She predicted that it will one day be as commonplace as recycling.

Pat Bourke, Tyson’s corporate social responsibility program manager, said UA efforts fit in with the company’s charitable giving that targets hunger relief.

Before providing the grant, Tyson had provided money for a freezer to help with food storage, which Civita said is a key part of the infrastructure needed when developing a food recovery program. Allison said Tyson also helped with refrigeration equipment when the UA program recovered about 12,000 pounds of food from the annual WalMart shareholders meeting held on campus in June.

“Because U of A wants to share their model, we feel very strongly they can be a part of a more sustainable solution in the fight against hunger,” Bourke said.

Civita said organizations of all types have begun turning to UA for guidance.

“I get three to four calls or emails a week from people all around the country wanting more information about the legal aspects, asking follow-up legal questions,” she said.