LOS ANGELES -- Just outside SoFi Stadium on Super Bowl Sunday, 2,500-plus guests strolled past row upon row of food stalls with freshly grilled octopus, cheese-oozing burgers, fried chicken, caviar-topped steak and carts brimming with mochi ice cream, while women wearing utility belts adorned with pails of oysters, hot sauce and mignonette wandered through the crowd, shucking and serving.
It was the annual Players Tailgate event, a pregame party from chefs Guy Fieri and Aaron May, who were mingling with celebrities and fellow chefs and keeping the festivities lively until kickoff. As with many such events, the spread offered an abundance of refreshments and a virtual guarantee that some of them wouldn't be consumed. Hundreds of pounds of food could have gone to waste that day — but a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit dedicated to fighting food insecurity was there to ensure that didn't happen.
The Food Recovery Network team landed two days before the event, but the planning began weeks ago. Typically the nonprofit encourages its national system of student volunteers to source and donate excess food from their universities' dining halls. For an event of this scope, however, with so much leftover food anticipated, FRN would need to coordinate dropoffs at multiple L.A.-area organizations near the Hollywood Park Casino, where the Players Tailgate would take place. After all, the FDA states that prepared food should no longer be consumed after it has been left unrefrigerated for two hours, and the clock was ticking on an 82-degree afternoon on the day of one of the biggest sporting events of the year.
