Maggie Palopoli (Rhodes College) interviewing Gia Pirro (Rhodes College) and Tate Mulligan (Welcome Resource Center – Rhodes Graduate ’18)
This podcast is part of the Rhodes College Just Food series, which addresses food inequality through discussion of production, access, distribution and consumption in Memphis and beyond. In this semester-long project, students and community members have come together to promote empowerment through awareness and equity.
I'm Maggie Palopoli and I'll be hosting this episode, "Waste not, Want not - Food Recovery Network at Rhodes and Beyond."
Food Recovery Network is an organization that is dear to my heart. As a current senior at Rhodes College, I've been involved with the Food Recovery Network since my freshman year in 2016 and currently serve as the President. Alongside my involvement with Food Recovery Network, I began volunteering in 2016 at the soup kitchen of St. John's United Methodist Church here in Memphis, Tennessee. Some days I would notice that I consumed food at Rhodes that I then recovered, delivered, prepared and served to hungry community members at St. John's. Beginning with an individual level approach and shifting to a more structurally rooted approach to Food Recovery Network within the food system in Memphis, I not only became more acutely aware of my own food consumption habits and food waste, but also the gaping food inequalities in Memphis. According to the Map the Meal Gap Research Initiative by Feeding America, 17.8% of Memphis is food insecure and the rate of child food insecurity is 21.6%. Absurd statistics such as these are not in isolation. One in seven people in the U.S. do not have access to affordable, nutritious food. Yet 40% of the food grown or produced is being thrown away. Globally, one third of all food produced is not consumed. There is no doubt that food waste is one of the biggest food justice issues in the US.
The USDA and EPA set a domestic goal in 2015 to reduce food loss and waste by 50 percent by 2030. As we grapple with this reality of food waste, Food Recovery Network is an organization that provides hope that is grounded in pragmatism. In September 2011, Food Recovery Network was founded as a student group at the University of Maryland. Students held a simple belief that instead of throwing away untouched uneaten food, this surplus food should be donated to nonprofit organizations that are fighting hunger. It is the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, signed in 1996, which allows Food Recovery Network volunteers to donate unused surplus food or grocery products to 501c3 nonprofits. Today, Food Recovery Network is the largest student movement fighting against food waste and hunger. It is currently composed of 230 chapters across 44 states. The Food Recovery Network website states that over 3.9 million pounds of food that otherwise would have gone to waste have been recovered and donated since this food would have ended up in landfills. And Food waste is the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Over 6.8 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions have been prevented. The mission of Food Recovery Network is to shift the norm of food waste to food recovery and to use that food to feed food insecure individuals and communities. Food Recovery Network's model to address the issue of food waste generates engagement through both action and awareness and is uniquely impactful because it is operated by students within college campuses. In researching the history of Food Recovery Network at Rhodes, I turned to Tate Mulligan, a friend and former student and founder of Food Recovery Network at Rhodes College.
Tate: Hello, everyone. My name is Tate Mulligan. I'm from Dallas, Texas. I went to Rhodes where I studied International Studies and History and recently graduated in the year of 2018. I was on the founding board or team for Food Recovery Network at Rhodes College. I think the reason I helped found the Food Recovery Network my freshman year was I was a Bonnar scholar at Rhodes College, a community service based scholarship that allowed me to work within the community, and I took an interest at the St. John's Soup Kitchen. I was working at St. John's to kitchen with a bunch of the fellow Bonnar scholar students and found that any given week there were 40 people to about 120. And depending on the time of the month and when people had food stamps or did not have enough food stamp money, that was when the numbers fluctuated the most at the soup kitchen. And I found when people had run out of food stamps, there were more people coming to St. John's on Tuesday afternoons to get dinner. And our food budget was consistent across the month each week. So some weeks we would have a lot of food and food left over, then there'd be some weeks where we just really were scraping the serving dishes to get enough plates out. And so I was kind of talking through the challenges with my Bonnar director. She had mentioned that the cafeteria in recent years had been donating food themselves, but because of their shortness on staff they weren't able to actually deliver it to a soup kitchen and they were needing a student to make the donation on their behalf. And so kind of in this grassroots, really, I saw a need and tried to fulfill it, we just started I went talk to the chef about it and he said, yeah, we'll package it if you come pick it up. And so oftentimes my freshman year I'd be running out of class to get to my car and deliver this food so it could be heated on time for St. John's. That summer, a senior contacted me - Adil Khan and he had mentioned that this kind of infrastructure that I kind of was just doing on my own or with a few others could be more official, and there is actually an organization, by the name of Food Recovery Network, who had created the infrastructure as a nonprofit, and we create a chapter at Rhodes.
And so they did. In the fall of 2015, the official Rhodes chapter of the Food Recovery Network was formed due to the work of the founding members Adil Khan, Ellery Ammons, Gene Lamanilao, Catherine Miller and Tate Mulligan. The Rhodes food provider was very receptive to students coming in to help recover food more regularly. They said that Tuesdays and Fridays were the best days for students to recover food each week. With the official chapter formed and more regular time set for recoveries. The leadership team connected Rhodes Food Recovery with two other partner sites with soup kitchens for deliveries. St Vincent de Paul and First Congressional Church or First Congo. On Tuesdays, food would be delivered to St. John's and on Fridays food would be delivered to First Kongo or St Vincent de Paul on an alternating basis. As time went on, pounds of food recovered continue to increase and we felt good about the work that was being done, but lots of food was still being wasted. And in addition to our mission of recovering surplus food, we also had a mission to spread awareness about food consumption and food waste. Tate noticed that people would often pile their trays high with food and then would end up throwing away large amounts of it. She approached Julie, the food provider manager, about the possibility of eliminating trays.
Tate: I said, hey, look, we've heard about this. We think it would reduce it. She said Tate I know it's a great idea. And in theory, of course, that would reduce food waste, but there's no evidence. She said you have to take it to a vote with the student body. We can do a trial run after we have hard numbers.
So in an effort to provide evidence that tray usage was correlated with increased food waste, we started weighing the food that was leftover on people's trays to collect data. We called these Weigh in Wednesdays. We then compared these numbers to the number of pounds of food that we measured when people do not have trays. These days were called Trayless Tuesdays. The Food Recovery Network was able to demonstrate through these Weigh in Wednesdays and Trayless Tuesdays that there was indeed a correlation between tray usage and food waste.
Tate: And that's when we presented her the Weigh in Wednesdays and between Trayless Tuesdays, Weigh in Wednesday, and the student body not minding as much, she was willing to do it.
Now Rhodes's without trays, though ff people ask for a tray, they may receive one. And as we hoped, food waste has decreased. But we continue to do Weigh in Wednesdays as awareness campaigns and to help students become more intentional food consumers.
For a current student's perspective and motivation within Food Recovery Network, I chatted with the current Treasurer of the Food Recovery Network, Gia Pirro.
Gia: My name is Gia. I am a sophomore at Rhodes College. I am the treasurer of Food Recovery Network. I got involved as a freshman. I was looking for I think ways to reduce the immense amount of food waste that goes on at a college campus. I have a very strong interest in sustainability and how I guess how human action impacts the environment around us. My favorite thing about Food Recovery Network is how it simultaneously reduces food waste at Rhodes College, but it also fulfills a need in the community for people who don't have access to good food. So I think that it really does those two things at the same time. And I really love that about Food Recovery Network. As I've gotten further and further and I think that I've been drawn in by the science, but my horizons have really expanded. Like years ago, if somebody had asked me if food had anything to do with sustainability, I probably would have said no. But as you go deeper and deeper into sustainability, for me that was coming through sustainable energy, you just realize how big of an issue sustainable living is in the planet's future, but also how many things are encompassed under sustainability. So yeah, that's how I ended up at Rhodes College looking for something that had to do with sustainability, not necessarily knowing that that would involve food justice and then Food Recovery Network kind of being my entry point into that.
In my conversation with Gia, we discussed what the process of food recoveries look like each week.
Gia: The Rhodes College kitchen is not super big, so the amount of volunteers that go down every time we recover is usually, I think around 2 to 4. We try to keep it relatively limited because the space is not that big. But on either Tuesday or Friday, a group of students will meet and then go into the kitchen of the cafeteria. We follow certain food safety protocols, such as wearing closed-toe-shoes and gloves. Having our hair back, things like that. And then essentially one of the kitchen staff will show the students what food is able to be covered and then we'll take that. We will put it in these Tupperware bins that we have. And then we'll weigh it on the scale. And then those numbers will be categorized under like "meat" or "vegetable", and then they can be recorded on the national website for Food Network just to let the national organization track the effectiveness of what we're doing and make sure that we're like active in doing what we say we will do. Something that I really love about the food recovery process is how integrated into the kitchen food recovery students become. We follow the same food safety protocol as the other kitchen staff and we're working around them in the same spaces. And we're able to talk with them. And just basically enter into their space. So the process itself is really neat. And then after that, the bins full of food will be taken by a student driver, usually an Exec board member. There's usually one Exec board member at every food recovery that we do. And it will be taken over to some soup kitchen where they will use the food that day.
We also talked about Food Recovery Network's current efforts to extend beyond food recoveries through advocating for composting on campus, as well as joining a coalition of student organizations with sustainability goals, one of which is the revitalization of the Rhodes Community Garden.
Gia: The Food Recovery Network partnered with I think five other organizations to revitalize garden beds that we have at roads. The idea with that is that it promotes sustainability. I think raising awareness for people to see that growing your own food is really not as challenging as it may sound. And also just making connections for people mentally about how the Beekeeping Club and the Sustainability Coalition and Food Recovery Network and all these other organizations are actually under one umbrella working toward sustainability. And that Food Justice and Food Recovery Network is one aspect of sustainability.
After we spoke about the history of Food Recovery Network and the logistics of recoveries at Rhodes, I also wanted to provide Tate and Gia an opportunity to reflect on the work of Food Recovery Network and think critically about its limitations as an organization that can often be a Band-Aid solution to addressing larger food inequalities.
Gia: In a most blatant sense, we only recover food two days out of the week and we're talking a seven day week for the cafeteria. So on that level, it's frustrating that we only have the ability and manpower to collect on two days of the week, so there are other days that we are missing. But we do try to not just collect food from the day of that we go down there, but maybe things that are from the previous day or even the day before that. So that can be frustrating, but we do try to work around that. Additionally, I think that Food Recovery Network definitely helps with the food waste at Rhodes. But more than that, it comes down to a matter of the kitchen itself having an accurate estimation of how much food students are going to eat and consume and that's why it's so important on a student level to not be taking a bunch of food that's not going to get consumed or leave any plates that are full or just getting really large portions and wasting those, which is a personal responsibility that every student has so that the Rhodes Kitchen can have a more accurate estimation of how much food we consume and therefore make less waste. Because I think the Food Recovery Network works kind of on the back end of taking food that is already in excess and then trying to repurpose it for something useful. I think ideally that extra food wouldn't be generated in the first place.
Tate: I think as I step back from being at Rhodes after graduating, I've had a lot of time to think about Food Recovery Network and its role that it played in the community and I think in many ways I would almost hope that food recovery didn't need to exist. It shows inadequacies or kind of gaps in services for two institutions really, and that would be the food system within Memphis and kind of the social services that are provided for people who might have inadequate resources to access healthy and nutritious food. But I also think it shows a gap in. And I say this to the Rhodes cafeteria. I say Rhodes cafeteria. But I think I really just mean like the food service industry in general, that the margin between what is needed to feed hungry customers and what is wanted at the end of the day, there's always a gap. And so I think that there are just programs and kind of more of an awareness that needs to be like a culture of awareness about what is needed and wanted for customers so food isn't wasted. And I think that with Food Recovery, specifically in the example of Rhodes and the cafeteria with the data that we have given them, you know, what is wasted, they're able to adjust their numbers. So in some ways, Food Recovery Network aids in creating a better awareness of what students want or didn't necessarily like when they made too much of it for a week, I think it also again, I point to that really a larger gap in the food system in Memphis and how there are people who just go without or don't have access to. And that, yes, donating the leftover food is a noble cause, but I think asking like, why are these services even needed is the bigger question that the community needs to be asking. And I would hope that food recovery on the actual delivery of food. Yes. Like if there is food that would possibly be wasted, they recover it. But that the system at Rhodes becomes so adequate that food recovery becomes more of an awareness group. I think that would be a huge hope for the Rhodes chapter.
Gia and Tate also shared with me a little bit of their insight into the food landscape of Memphis and how Food Recovery Network plays a role in food justice work in the city.
Tate: Yeah. What do grocery stores and central markets look like in Memphis and how are people able to access them, if at all? What kind of living wage do you need to be making to provide not just food but nutritious and healthy food on the tables of each Memphian's house? How do we begin as a community to ask like, or say, that families deserve more than a gas station-bought meal or a snack as dinner? They deserve more than that. And that foods that are highly processed and cheap don't actually they don't give them the energy that is necessary to be mentally productive for the Memphian Society. It allows people to survive calorically, but they are malnourished. And we see that. We see that in the education system and students' ability to perform or learn really. And I think that if we were to be able to care for people on a human level, we would be able to create more productive citizens if that's the argument that we need to make for Memphis.
Gia: I would just really encourage the average citizen in Memphis to try to be aware of the food landscape in Memphis. I think it's really important for people to know that the selection of produce at Kroger versus Save-A-Lot is pretty different in Memphis and that for a lot of people, the nearest grocery store is the one they'll be shopping at. So I think it's really worth keeping in mind, seeing how nutrition and just access to calories in general plays a huge role in people's health and and how that affects their ability to do well in school and health wise and in their workplace. And just really realizing that in Memphis, the food landscape is not necessarily equally accessible to everybody in Memphis. Yeah, I just think that Food Recovery Network is, for me at least, it's been a really great eye opener in making that connection and opening my eyes to see how food and equity really are tied together and not only are addressing food waste and sustainability, but we're also addressing equity and access.
I think like a question I have is like, how do we open students' eyes on campus? How do we provide this eye-opening experience of connecting food with equity and health and all of these things that we're kind of seeing being connected without, you know, every student on campus having access to the time to recover?
Gia: Right. I think the first thing that comes to mind is a captive audience of first year seminar. I think that perhaps Food Recovery would fit really nicely into the topics that are typically covered as we talk about the demographics in Memphis and kind of the urban layout and like a little bit of history and we talk about all those types of things, I think your coverage would fit in pretty nicely. So I wonder if there might be a way for Food Recovery Network to be invited to participate in those conversations? Something like that. I also feel that Rhodes students do a pretty good job of engaging with information that's provided to them, so I wonder if I guess just more visual advocacy in the cafeteria in the form of like facts and infographics and information might be helpful, or maybe even if Food Recovery Network had a presence at the Rhodes Research Symposium at the end of the year.
Tate: I think of the word food justice and awareness and I think of how Food Recovery could bring people's attention to questions they could be asking towards every plate of food that they eat. Asking people to ask the questions, I think that that's where awareness starts is if people don't even know what question to ask, then how can they seek the answer? And so it really is, I think, about getting people to slow down enough and say like, "this is my breakfast for the morning." And "where is this food coming from? Is it nutritious for my body?" and is it in a reusable or one-time-use container and how does that affect the earth?" "If I don't eat all of my food, what will I do with the food that I don't eat? How will I compost it or throw it away or save it for later?" I think it part of awareness, right, is just asking people to slow down and provide them the questions that they might need. And I think that that's what food recovery is doing. It is doing and can continue to do.
I think cooking and eating and eating together is one of the most sacred and human acts that we participate in on a daily basis. And I feel as if we are disconnected to many of those processes of producing the food and cleaning it and cooking it. I feel because it's oftentimes that at the Rhodes campus, people just show up and eat, they don't understand the process of how that food actually got on their plate. And because of the lack of awareness of the process, you're more susceptible to taking for granted what is on your plate and willing to waste it or making the decision to waste it. And so I think that there's like an individual education and also like that's the interconnectedness of it. And understanding what we put into our bodies we actually become connected to everyone around us. And you realize then that a large majority of our society is a part of that process or it previously was. And I think like one thing that always really, it really hurt me, to be honest, was naming this privilege, I realized I was so privileged to be at an institution that had food waste. And then I was privileged enough to say who received my recovered food. And that hurt me because that meant that in some way I had more than another. And that didn't feel right. Another really powerful, powerful thing for me was my rule switched. When I was on the Rhodes campus, I went from being served to, then when I left the Rhodes campus, I was the one serving and I understood better the people who served me and so willingly, like I realized like the time and energy that they put in the kitchen was time and energy I didn't have to and I could dedicate to my studies. And so that was like I realized it was a great act of love.
The food services provided by St. John's Soup Kitchen are certainly an act of love. Rosetta Holmes, known fondly by Rhodes students as Ms. Rose, was kind enough to talk with me a little bit about the soup kitchen and its relationship with Rhodes.
Rose: My name is Ms. Rose. I work at St. John's, been here since 1996. Born and raised in Chicago. Now living in Memphis. I help the soup kitchen on Tuesday with my Rhodes kids who I love.
And when did the soup kitchen get started with St. John's?
Rose: 1984 by Scott Morris.
So, Rhodes, you have a relationship with Rhodes. When did that start?
Rose: Oh, when Rhodes started coming, I think they came like in '85, '85 or '84, something like that.
So really right at the beginning of when it was started?
Rose: Yes.
Now does Rhodes provide money to St. John's for the meals?
Rose: I think Rhodes, they have an account and they get like $200. They have a budget. That's their budget of $200.
Did Rhodes reach out to you, to St. John's, or how did that come about, the involvement?
Rose: I think Rhodes did. They reached out to us because they needed. I guess the program that y'all have, like for volunteers and Bonner, and they needed somewhere to send their volunteers or send the students.
How many people, about how many people each week do you serve through the soup kitchen?
Rose: It really depends. Mostly, we usually like the seating downstairs holds like 125. That's the maximum.
Finally, I had a conversation with Itthipoaln Rasasack, the current Rhodes student leader and coordinator at St. John's Soup Kitchen. While Rhodes provides a budget of $200 each Tuesday for volunteers to purchase ingredients to prepare a meal to feed between 50 and 100 people, there is no way to know exactly how much food will be needed, and so often the food donated by Food Recovery Network is greatly needed to supplement the other food that quickly runs out.
Itthipoaln: So my name is Itthipoaln Rasasack. I am a senior at Rhodes College and I am the student coordinator of the Rhodes College Soup Kitchen at St. John's United Methodist Church. So the food from Food Recovery Network is very helpful to soup kitchen. It helps to feed more need. I know some of the meals that I cook may not be filling as it could be because you are cooking with like a limited budget and limited ingredients, so when I do get assistance from Food Recovery Network, it's really helpful to know, okay, they will get enough food for this Tuesday and even can take some with them when they leave here as well. And it really does help with the meals that we make and the people that come to the soup kitchen really appreciate it too. I guess it's really hard to gage if they like it more or less. I know that they're really appreciative of it no matter what we bring out. And then there is sometimes you have excess food just cause there's too much of it, or maybe some people don't like a certain dish, you know. And what we try to do is we're trying to like find other places to bring it. If it's like if we're able to bring it just to avoid wasting the food and throwing it away. So that's like bringing it to other like missions or like places that accept food donations like that. But to solve the underlying causes of food disparities, soup kitchen is I don't believe is the final solution and it shouldn't be. It is a large systemic kind of problem that I don't think Soup Kitchen, I do believe it's a band-aid effect, but it is something that is still helpful, but we know it's not the solution.
Ultimately, neither Food Recovery Network nor St. John's Soup Kitchen are single-handedly the solution to solving issues of food justice within Memphis. And they draw attention to our deep need for solutions that are logical, long-term, and address the root causes of food disparities, not just the manifestations of these disparities. What Food Recovery Network has done successfully, however, and strives to continue to do is to create a ripple effect of action, engagement and awareness that seeks to draw our attention to the role and power of the consumer in eliminating food waste. In this way, Food Recovery Network is an influential part of the creation of a food system that is more just for all.