Meetings Matter Chatter
Industry trends and topics pertaining to the travel and meetings industry
Meetings Matter Chatter
Meeting Leftovers: Sharing the Feast
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Join us for a conversation with Thomas Whelan, the Director of Events at Access, a destination management company. Thomas is dedicated to reducing food waste and will share valuable insights about the legal protections that facilitate food donations. He’ll discuss how meeting organizers can easily donate leftover food to support those in need. We’ll explore practical tips and highlight the positive impact of giving back to the community while ensuring that no meal goes to waste. Tune in to find out how you can make a difference one meeting at a time!
Hi there, welcome to Meetings Matter Chatter. My name is Jenna Baker, and I'm the Vice President of Account Management at BCD Meetings and Events, and I am your host. Today I am joined by Thomas Wheelin, who is the director of events at Access, which is a destination management company that services the US. Today, Thomas is going to talk to us about food waste and the impact food donations from meetings can make on a community. Thomas, welcome.
SPEAKER_00Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. This is, you know, a very important topic and something we don't think about necessarily in the planning process. So hopefully we can um bring it front of mind together.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I really appreciate you bringing this information to our listeners because it is really important. But let's start with you. Why don't you just tell us about yourself and your background?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I am the director of events in the Northeast for Access DMC, the Northeast being, you know, Virginia up, I like to say, as far as your mind can go, to the coasts of Maine, Boston, New York, all that. Prior to joining Access, which was, I think, about eight months now, which is feels like a blink of an eye, I had spent the last 24 years in um catering in food and beverage. And I know what you're probably thinking, like, aren't you just 24? And the answer is yes, if if you are asking. But in my experience overseeing food and beverage at convention centers and then also in special attractions and museums, we figured out ways to connect our community with our events through food donations. This really set off for me actually in 2020, when I was at the Boston Convention Exhibition Center. And we within four days changed from an amazing world-class exhibition center and convention center into a field hospital. And so there was a thousand beds. You know, half of it was a hospital, half of it was people experiencing homelessness during this crazy pandemic. And as we were preparing meals, we realized we were preparing meals, not knowing what would come in. And we would sometimes have a lot of food left, sometimes not a lot of food left. And we partnered with a the rescuing leftover cuisine, which is in Massachusetts, to get food back into the community, to neighborhood centers, to community fridges. And it really brought to light how easy it was. And then I kind of set on my way to be like, everyone needs to know about this. I will be the Paul Revere of food donations if that's what it takes. So that's what I am currently doing.
SPEAKER_01Well, we're grateful for that. So obviously, that event in 2020 impacted you, but you have a longer history and more reasons why food waste is so important to you. Can you talk about that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So I didn't realize how easy it was for me and my profession to impact and kind of heal younger me. Uh, when I was a young child, probably from the ages of six to maybe 10, I didn't realize that I was experiencing food insecurity. And food insecurity is really just not knowing where your next meal can come from or if it's going to be a healthy meal. And I didn't really remember it. You know, it's a part of my life where you kind of, you know, take let it take a back seat, not hold you back. But every day I'm in my mother's dining room, there's a photo that she had printed for when she had just bought her house when I was um 12 years old. And it was a photo of my family that said, no more macaroni soup. And that was because my mother would take a box of craft macaroni soup and add enough water to it to feed five people for two days. And that just, you know, and we experienced she went to pantries, she was in line, she was doing everything. And as you're a kid, you don't know that. But as an adult, I looked back and I was like, wow, I was one of those kids that are benefiting from the leftovers of a meeting. And so that really hit the gaps because sometimes I think we don't, you can't picture it because you picturing a hungry kid or a hungry adult, it's not, it's not enjoyable. And you don't want to. When you're at a buffet or you're at a plate of dinner, you want to be like, oh, I shouldn't take extra because that could take from someone else later. It's just no one wants to unfortunately ruin their mail with that sad idea.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but but it is a big problem. How widespread is food insecurity in the US?
SPEAKER_00The numbers come out every few years. So the last real number, and I believe I say real as um government documented through the USDA was in 2022. However, there was another survey that was sent out in 2023, and it showed that 47.4 million people, just so almost 48 million people in the United States, um experience food insecurity.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00But then households with children, it's 17.9%. Oh wow. So and then on top of that, they think that in this study that an additional 9% could in fact be impacted. However, in those homes, the parents will go without so that their children can eat. So it really can vary. I know that in California, it's a really easy statistic. It's one in five Californians struggle with food insecurity. One in 20%.
SPEAKER_01Wow. Wow. Okay. So so it makes sense. You made a very natural connection. You're seeing all that food waste and and the opportunity. And listening to you, I'm sure anyone listening to this podcast would say, all right, absolutely. We should be donating our food from our meetings. That's a no-brainer, but they're not always, right?
SPEAKER_00No, there's like, first off, if you're listening to this and you feel a little guilt because you're like, I'm not thinking about this. And we just went through horrific invert, like horrific statistics. Take a deep breath. You are not guilty. We have been conditioned to think that there are so many roadblocks. And when I talk to people, I'm like, well, what are the roadblocks? What are you thinking that's stopping you? And I get the same things. It's the same three things always: the legal risk, the resources we have, and the partnerships. So what I want to do is make it easier because it is estimated that 10 to 15% of all food at events goes uneaten. So that's 10 to 15%. And then you factor in most catering agreements, CSAs or our contracts are making an overage. So that, and some of those overages are three to five percent. So it really could be 13 to 18 to 20% of food waste from events itself. And since we have this plethora of supplies and our community needs it, it's we need to have our own episode of Mythbusters, if you've ever seen the TV show, where we're really talking about like how do we break the stigmatism of why we do not donate or why we're not incorporating it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because when I was, it's been a while since I've been a planner, but but that was the um the tagline. The hotels would say that. Oh, we can't donate the food, we'll get sued. And we would just accept that and you know, believe it.
SPEAKER_00So let me tell you something that's gonna possibly blow your mind. How many people do you think have been sued for don after donating food?
SPEAKER_01I'm guessing it's not a lot.
SPEAKER_00It is zero.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00As of this recording, there has not been a documented case that most experts can find where someone was held litigiously litigiously responsible for something due to donating food. But we all know that friend who knew someone who's cousin, who's work, right? We all we all know that. And actually, it's quite the contrary. In the United States, we have what's called the Emerson Act. And the Emerson Act is an actual piece of legislation that protects you from litigation or or civil, you know, civil suit from donating food as long as certain metrics are in place. So it's literally the exact opposite. You can donate food because you are protected. And it even goes further with each state's and things like that.
SPEAKER_01Huh. That is surprising, but not really that surprising, I guess.
SPEAKER_00Granted, there are certain stipulations, right, of the Emerson Act, of the specific legal, like national act, the one that it has to be through donation to a nonprofit. So you need to be donating directly to a nonprofit. You cannot charge or do reduced priced items. So the Emerson Act doesn't cover there's this program, too good to go. I don't know if you've heard of it. It's very popular in a lot of metropolitan areas where you can pay reduced pricing for goods that are going out of date, expiration date, that wouldn't qualify. Um, that the donations are made in good faith. So that's the big thing. Donations being made in good faith, that there's no malicious intent, and that you're, if you're saying, I have this food, here it is. Please give this to someone in need, and you're doing it out of the kindness of your heart and you're giving it to a nonprofit, and it is not, you're not charging them, you are you're good, you're covered. And then so many states have additional liability protections. Uh, California has so many. And also in California, there's actually for planners who are who are organizing there, it's um State Bill 1383. You know that one, right?
SPEAKER_01Uh I'm not in California anymore.
SPEAKER_00Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yes, of course I do.
SPEAKER_00No, yeah. No one's an average of that. But in January 24, that law expanded that requires hotels, restaurants, venues of certain sizes to have a food donation system in place. So the law is coming. So I always tell vendors and restaurants and caterers when I'm talking to them, the laws are changing where you're gonna have to do this. So start working on it now, start implementing it now. And then um Pennsylvania just brought to a vote to add that food that is beyond its expiration date, but is still healthy and good to eat, those can be donated as well. That's going to their state senate, um, I believe this year. So almost every state are adding more and more protections for people.
SPEAKER_01Does it cost the hotels money to donate?
SPEAKER_00No. It's actually so much easier than you think. So there are two different ways that I recommend getting involved with food donation. One is to there's uh the food rescue locator, which you can just put in where you're having the event and it'll pair you with someone. Rescuing leftover cuisine is national. They're in a number of areas, or you can just do the city and then food rescue, right? Like Philadelphia Food Rescue, Tulsa Food Rescue. You'll find something. And now everyone is app based. And also there is an app called Care It. So C-A-R-E-I-T.com. Share it with Carrot, which will pair you with a food rescue organization. And what's cool about it is you've used Uber, you used Lyft, most of us have, right? It's just like that now. You open an app, you say, This is my location, this is how much food I have, and this is when I need it picked up, and they send you a volunteer in a car to wherever you stayed it to pick it up and then bring it exactly where it needs to go. So if you have a hundred box lunches, oh, that'll be great for this children's center for kids to take home when they're they don't know if they'll have dinner, they can bring it home. Or if you're like, I have a bunch of snacks, this can go here. Say you have buffets, buffet food that's in and tin, they can bring it to food banks, they can bring it to shelters, they can bring it to community fridges. If you have produce, like I have a bushel of apples that are gonna go bad, bring it to a community fridge and people can go to those community fridges and grab it. And it's just you loading it up. For me, it's it's always the same thing. I put on it when it was made, any known allergens, because just because people are hungry does not mean that they cannot be gluten-free or vegan, you know? Um, those in need still have health, health issues, and then package it, someone picks it up, we hand it to them, put it in their car, and they bring it. There's no expense. Adding a partner is super easy. You don't need to worry. The only expense you really may have is if you don't have materials to pack something. And if it's grab and go, it's even easier. And it's, I can think of 20 different ways right now where you can make it really fun and engaging for your attendees during food, food periods at events to get them engaged in it as well.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I love that idea. You're right. You could have them just package it up and label it and they'd enjoy doing that and feel good about it.
unknownHuh.
SPEAKER_00One of my favorite things to see is when you're when you're doing a box lunch or an out-of-the-box lunch, and people take their box and then right by the station, the buffet, the chef's table are bins, or you know, you can make them thematic. Where so say you get your box lunch, pick the things you don't want and we'll donate it for you. So you open your box lunches, a bag of chips, a sandwich, a pasta salad, or a fruit or cookie. You can go, you know what, I'm not gonna eat these chips, I'm not gonna eat this cookie, I'm not gonna eat this fruit. You can just put them in the barrels. There's a note of where it's going. People take photos, people interact with it. You get social media, you get people feeling good, getting some serotonin in the middle of the day, saying, like, look at me helping this community, look at me being involved. And people love to feel good. And people love to share when they're doing something good. So it can also be a really good moment for you and your team to get some marketing exposure. Although I don't want people to do things for marketing, but it is, it is, it's the way of the world, right? Like, and you can tell the story, um, also telling the story of donating on your buffet lines. So, say you have a key, no one wants to have lines right at their buffets, but sometimes they happen. I like to encourage people to put a little note Hey, any remaining food from today's events is going to this building or this to this shelter or this community resource. And it'll make people feel really good and also make them think like, do I need to take so much? Uh and it's it's a really good way to make them feel like they're a part of supporting that community.
SPEAKER_01Wow. So just kind of mechanically, if I were a meeting planner and I wanted to do this, let's say I'm planning a meeting in Atlanta at a particular hotel, would my first step be to ask the hotel if they're donating? And okay, and if they're not, then I would say, can you give me the materials to box up the stuff with my attendees and then kind of go on those apps and find my own donation?
SPEAKER_00I would I would say your first step would be to engage your catering salesperson or your your CSM or whoever it is and say, hey, what do you have currently set up to donate food back to the community? Just say it just like that. And any good catering professional is probably gonna take a step back and either know right away because you're probably not the first person at this point to ask, or look into it. Now, if you're getting pushback and saying, unfortunately, we can't do that, I would say, Hey, I know that you can do that. And this is really important to me, my stakeholders, to our corporate social responsibility, to our clients, and let them know that it is something that your clients are you, the organization, your organization or the organization that you're representing, it's important to them. And then I would share them a read the food rescue locator or the carrot website and say, hey, these are two resources for you to utilize in setting this up for me.
SPEAKER_01Okay, okay. And then, worst case scenario, if they say, no, no, no, no, no, I won't do it, then we have to, we can still do it. We just have to sort of manually do it ourselves.
SPEAKER_00Yes. Then I would say, then you'll need to package any leftover food. And if you could just label it like this, and then we will have someone come pick it up. And then you can go on the app and pick it up and have someone come and pick it up for you.
SPEAKER_01Okay. It would be nice too. I mean, you mentioned if the attendees are boxing up the things, then they'll obviously know. Or like you said, you could put a note to say, you know, the food that's not eaten is going to be donated. There's probably other ways you'd suggest about communicating with the attendees pre- or post-meeting to let them know that they did something good here.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, what's really great about a lot of these apps is if you're doing a multi-day event or multi-meal, you're putting in how much food is going. And usually it's by pound or by size. And usually you can get where it's going, who'd impacted, and how much you send. So you can say, today's luncheon, we provided 400 meals to the community that would have one day gone to a landfill or waste. And you can give them that real information. And most of the partners that you work with are going to give you that if you ask it because they know it's just going to encourage you to do it again.
SPEAKER_01I love that. Are there any other ways, though, at our meetings that we should think about kind of reducing food waste in general?
SPEAKER_00So the the two things that you can that I can think you can do very easily if you don't want to go the donation route first, which you should, and I encourage everyone to, but you know, maybe it's the baby steps to getting there. One is smaller plates. Do you need a 13-inch or 11-inch dinner plate on your buffet, or is the seven or nine-inch salad or lunch plate gonna work? More likely than not, the smaller plate will work. And that smaller plate is going to minimize any of that 10 to 15% that we are already wasting. And a lot of amazing hotel chains and large venues have already made that switch because they know it's also good for them. And it's it's it's good for them to reduce waste as well. Another would be having a conversation with your catering partner or your food and beverage team and saying, do we when if you're doing a buffet, how often are you refilling? And at what percent are you refilling? Because any food that hits the buffet line cannot be saved. Once it goes into the shafing dish or once it goes out on a platter, that really can't be passed along. So if you say, hey, do not refill until 10%, 20%, or only as needed, or if you're closing buffets down rather than just having empty lines sooner, you're going to reduce the opportunity of waste.
SPEAKER_01Oh, that's good to know. Okay. So have them put out smaller portions, save the rest in the back, but then if there's package items out, those can obviously be donated as well. Okay. All right. Those are those are good tips. A lot of things to think about. You've really kind of opened my eyes to the opportunities out there. I know that we we get complaints from attendees. Oh, there's so much food waste. People always say that. And it's really great to think that you have a good answer to that. Well, yeah. But uh, we're not actually gonna waste it. We're gonna donate it. So I I love the work that you're doing. I think that you probably inspired those that are listening to this podcast and giving them some really great tips for the people listening. What is the the one takeaway that you'd say that you really want them to go out and do after listening to this?
SPEAKER_00I think whether it's in food donation or in anything we do in the industry, like we are so impactful. You know, I like to tell people that I operate out of 50% delusion and 50% spite. So, my events, if I'm doing an event for a bunch of doctors who are oncologists, I'm like, this event is gonna be so great that we're gonna cure cancer. Or if I'm doing an event in a science museum, this event is helping fund free tickets for the next kid who's gonna go to the moon to come and see this, to see this exhibit that's gonna inspire them for the rest of their life. So sometimes I can be a little inspirational or delusional. We'll we'll let you decide, the listener decide which I like inspirational. Yeah. It is so easy to positively impact the communities that we go into with meetings and events. We know that, and your CVBs and whoever's selling the destination will tell you the economical impact, the number of people who get to work, the number of restaurants, locally owned restaurants that you are bringing people to, and every destination and every person who lives in that destination, like me, is going to thank you for bringing your meeting and event there. But you can also really benefit the people in the areas of that city you will never experience. The people who are taking the bus to work, the people who are, you know, putting nickels and dimes together to get their kids lunch money, even at a subsidized rate, just by looking out at what you're producing and saying, what can remain to positively impact us? You know, I love at convention centers when they have cares initiatives where extra furniture gets sent to people who need it. And it's the same thing. It's just going, what can rather than it going in the the dumps are the garbage, how can we positively impact the people we will never see in this city? And this is such an easy way. It does feel like a hurdle, but I promise you, it's more like a speed bump. And once you get over it, it is 60 miles per hour and you'll go into and you'll go into cruise control as a vendor, as a venue and as a caterer. The first few times we got a couple hiccups, but then we had daily pickups, no matter what. Every day they came. And it was just so easy.
SPEAKER_01Really, really awesome. I would imagine that you're pretty active probably on social media as well. I know you you speak around the country on this topic. You're really passionate about it. If people want to follow you or find you, where should they go, Thomas?
SPEAKER_00So if you would like to follow me, it's at Thomas Whalen Jr. T-H-O-M-A-S W-H-E-L-A-N-J-R at Instagram, Thomas Whalen on LinkedIn. Um, I think that's all the social media I have. I'm not a TikToker, I can't dance that well. But I'd also encourage um you to check out at Access DMC because we also share these stories as well. And you'll see probably me and one of those stories figuring out how we can get donations out further.
SPEAKER_01Well, I know you say you've only been at Access for eight months, but uh they are very lucky to have you. I'm sure they will listen to this and and know that. But um really want to thank you for coming on today and sharing your personal story and bringing this important message to our listeners. I know that you've made it your your mission in life to do your part towards solving food insecurity. And it's really admirable and really wonderful to hear about all your efforts. So um thank you very much for joining us today, and I'm sure we will be hearing a lot more about all the great things you're doing.
SPEAKER_00Thank you, and thank you for sharing your platform to let people know how easy this is.
SPEAKER_01For our listeners, if you wanted to check out any of the food donation options that Thomas mentioned, I wanted to restate them so you can write them down. Online, you can go to rescuing leftovercuisine.org or foodrescuelocator.com. If you're looking for an option on an app, you can download the app for Carrot Food Donation and Rescue, which is spelled C-A-R-E-I-T. I would encourage everyone listening to check out these resources. That's all the time we have for today. If you liked what you heard, please like and subscribe. I'm Jenna Baker, and this is Meetings Matter Chatter.