Reprinted from 2024 Governor’s Environmental Stewardship Awards Announcement
The University of Tennessee’s Food4VOLS is a food recovery, transformation, and
distribution program housed within the UT Culinary Institute in the College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences (CEHHS). By recovering unused and overproduced food, Food4VOLS has diverted 300,000 pounds of food and fought food insecurity in four counties in and around UT since the inception of the program. This diverted food equates to a reduction in greenhouse gases by almost 1 million pounds. The food is donated both on campus to hungry students and off campus to non-profits serving Tennesseans. This program is one of a kind in the USA, and already there are two other universities that will be implementing the program in South Carolina and Montana.
Partnering with UT Dining, Food4VOLS recovers food from more than 12 different locations on campus ranging from catering, fast food locati
ons, athletic dining, and large campus dining halls. To make the program successful, Food4VOLS provides each Vol Dining location with plastic food containers at the end of service. Daily recovery of food averages over 500 pounds of food that falls into four categories – protein, starch, vegetable/produce, and dessert items. Each location’s food recovery is recorded by weight and category allowing Food4VOLS to assist Vol Dining with data that can reduce overproduction and overall waste generation.
Currently Food4VOLS distributes the bulk of the prepared meals to Big Orange Pantry, located in the Student Union of the UT Knoxville campus. Smaller Food4VOLS cupboards have been installed around campus in food deserts where students have little to no other food options. Each cupboard comes equipped with a fridge filled with meals, a microwave to reheat the meals on site, cutlery to be able to eat the meals, and a dry storage area where non-perishable foods are available. In 2023, Food4VOLS provided an average of 375 meals per day to Big Orange Pantry and the cupboards combined.
Each Food4VOLS ready-to-heat meal costs 27 cents to produce. All funding needed for the meals has come from public and private donations to the program. In 2023 Food4VOLS raised over $60,000 to help create the ready-to-heat meals and provide transportation for collecting and distributing the meals. While the university assists with funding for staff and facility expenses, Food4VOLS relies on donations for supplies in producing the meals.
Food4VOLS collects more food daily than can be distributed on campus via the ready-to-heat meals. Partnering with Second Harvest of East Tennessee, Food4VOLS can donate excess food to four counties (Knox, Anderson, Blount, and Sevier) daily. Non-profit partners include Knox Area Rescue Ministries, Anderson County Council on Aging, Life Changers, True Purpose Ministries, and many others. With a staff of one full-time chef and three part time federal work study students, Food4VOLS collected over 154,000 pounds of food in 2023. That translated to over 56,000 meals for the UTK campus via the ready-to-heat meals, and over 100,000 pounds of food to non-profits in four counties in East Tennessee.
In 2023, Food4VOLS was part of two grants awarded to the University of Tennessee for fighting food insecurity on college campuses that total $790,000. While collecting food from businesses is not a new concept, doing it on a college campus and supporting the university and the surrounding communities is new. Food4VOLS is a program that is easily transferable to other colleges around the state and country. Food4VOLS strives to be an innovator in addressing food insecurity and food waste both on and off college campuses.