Serious question

[malaise]

What did the Hilton hotel do with all that wasted food last night?

[malaise]

2. That's what I was hoping

Food banks

[LeftInTX]

6. Generally they can't send food like prepared salads, steaks etc to food banks.

Too much spoilage potential by the time it's distributed.

Our food bank participates in a second serving program, but it has to be coordinated ahead of time.
https://safoodbank.org/ways-to-help/give-food/second-servings/

The Hilton may participate, but last night's event was probably too chaotic and wasn't predicted, plus all the Secret Service etc...

[malaise]

7. True

Been thinking about it since last night

[magicarpet]

11. I beg to defer,... knowledgeable food handlers know how to properly prepare,

.... then properly refrigerate, then properly reheat at the food bank location if they have institutional ovens,.. or reheat at the donor location for delivery to the food bank. Absolutely no reason that food should have gone in the trash and wasted.

My family owned three restaurants with banquet facilities and one of my job assignments was to be the coordinator for church run soup kitchen donations. We made breakfast deliveries,.. luncheon,... and dinner. A nice mixed garden salad will travel well provided you hold any salad dressings and chopped tomatoes, mixing those in at the location where the food will be served. But uncut cherry tomatoes come in handy if you want to avoid salad mush.

Currently I volunteer at a food bank. We serve Wednesdays and Saturdays only from 8am to 2pm. It is a soup kitchen that serves an elaborate breakfast and an elaborate lunch. We make take out sandwiches and small milk or juice containers for when people depart the premises and go on their way. Most of the clients are homeless. We provide food,.. act as a warming center for the duration of the time our doors are open, there is a large banquet type room with big round tables and chairs (max seating allowed 125 people) for people to eat, relax, and get warmed up. There are showers, we provide soap, shampoo, and a clean fluffy towel. There is a clothes locker available for wearing apparel that is donated. Shoes, pants, sweat shirts, socks, gloves, hats, hand and foot warmer packs, winter coats, boots, and blankets are all made available to our clients.

We live in Maine so our weather can get nasty cold - living outside is no picnic. We try to provide some services to help our clients endure being homeless. Periodically tables are set up for quest social services agencies to come in such as help to find housing, help with drinking or drug abuse, rape counseling, family planning, access government cell phones, access to welfare and food stamps etc., etc..

We recently went thru an extensive building and facilities remodel/upgrade. Part of this phase encompassed a gut to the wall studs to remodel our our archaic kitchen. It took over a month to clean out the old refers, old institutional ovens/stoves, sinks, and prep-tables. Then install new walls, floors, ceilings, lighting, and brand new institutional grade kitchen equipment.

During the duration of this month long kitchen tear down and refurbishment we still provider food service to our clients at the soup kitchen.

The way this was accomplished was to locate outside food purveyors to donate their food,.. preparation time,... and then deliver 150 meals for breakfast and lunch two days per week. We did have a temp kitchen and a large convection oven to make the refrigerated food made outside and delivered nice and toasty warm.

A local large restaurant and Bates College a local university covered our base to provide meals during our kitchen one month long shutdown and remodel. The chefs and culinary arts students at the college cafeteria prepped, cooked, wrapped up tightly, refrigerated, then delivered the following day. All the meals were packet in those large aluminum trays wrapped tightly refrigerated over night and then delivered to our soup kitchen location.

Almost every day five large trays of garden salads were delivered for our luncheon servings.

So with proper food handling techniques followed - food can be served, remain safe to eat, and be delicious - to be moved and served at remote feeding location.

The Hilton in Washington DC could certainly have donated all that food that remained uneaten because for the cancellation of the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. With proper coordination and planning not one morsel of that food need have gone to waste. Food banks and soup kitchens, often affiliated with churches, would have redirected that unbeaten good food to hungry mouths.

We do it every day we serve out homeless clients.

[LeftInTX]

12. Who knows what happened? But they couldn't immediately ship it off because the area was a crime scene.

Also they would have had to return the food to the fridges promptly and if they weren't able to do that, then they would have had to discard it. Coordination to do this could have been disrupted by the shooter event.

Below it states that the Hilton participates in such a program.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

3. Someone asked this on another board. The answer provided was that as much as possible was

given to the staff to eat, and the rest was thrown away.

Which I'm not a fan of, but in terms of logistics, this was a tough situation.

The city's flagship shelter is several miles away. They'd have to round up several trucks and drivers at ten o'clock on Saturday night to retrieve the food. The food would have to be kept at the proper temperature on the way over, and once it got to the shelter, it would again have to be properly stored until the kitchen and the kitchen staff could get ready to handle the sudden and unexpected donation.

Also, I used to work across the street from that shelter. The wouldn't take food left over from office get-togethers. There's no chain of custody that ensures the food was properly handled every step of the way. A church two blocks away couldn't accept it either.

The best we could was to leave it with the people on the sidewalk. We ended up giving of to our building's housekeeping staff.

Giving prepared food away has complications.

[malaise]

4. Sad

Thanks

[WhiskeyGrinder]

5. Staff probably took what they want/were able to carry, and then the rest discarded, like a lot of food in this country.

[orthoclad]

10. Around 25%, I think,

gets thrown out in the US.

The dumpsters will be full. I hope staff salvaged a lot.

[pat_k]

8. According to AHLA Responsible Stay, the Washington Hilton does have a food waste reduction program

https://www.responsiblestay.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AHLA_Responsible-Stay_Food-Waste_One-Pager.pdf

The Washington Hilton donates excess food and meals to the Ronald McDonald
House and DC Central Kitchen. Between 6-8% of all prepared food is donated.

I have no idea what happened to last night's food, but they appear to be plugged in to DC Central Kitchen and partner with WWF.

https://hotelkitchen.org/case-studies/washington-hilton

Successes
Located in the heart of Washington, DC, the Washington Hilton hosts many high-profile events, including the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The hotel’s proximity to World Wildlife Fund Headquarters allowed the food waste team to regularly visit the property to observe and assist in project implementation. The presence of the WWF team catalyzed the successful adoption of pre-service and post-service food waste separation in the staff cafeteria. Additionally, positive reinforcement from the pilot lead, additional staff training, and regular bin observations helped keep the food waste separation running smoothly. Staff happily adopted separation practices and shared stories with pilot leadership, demonstrating a clear understanding of the negative impacts of wasted food.

[malaise]

9. Great news

Thanks and Rec