Steps are being taken to reduce food waste at Neyland Stadium while helping those in need throughout the Knoxville community.
UT Recycling, in partnership with the UT Food Recovery Network and ARAMARK, donated 606 pounds of food to the Second Harvest Food Bank after the last home football game of the season.
The surplus food was collected from the skyboxes at Neyland Stadium.
Food from concessions at the stadium has been donated since last football season, but Saturday marked the first time unused food from the skyboxes was given to those in need.
In all, there was a total of 3,710 pounds of food donated to Second Harvest from the stadium this year.
UT Recycling Manager Jay Price, along with students Kelsey Coombs and Carmen Bell from the Food Recovery Network, worked until 2:00 a.m. Sunday after the Vanderbilt game repackaging the food and storing it in the stadium’s coolers to await collection by Second Harvest.
UT Recycling has been working toward this initiative since the beginning of the season. After the success of Saturday, there are hopes to expand the effort to other catered events around campus, including other athletic events.
“We were really excited to make this finally happen,” Price said. “This is going to be the start of something much, much bigger.”
For more information, contact UT Recycling at 974-3480.