Miami Gardens, Florida— Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend is like a Super Bowl-level event in Miami – especially when it comes to food.
Luxurious hospitality packages were created, award-winning chefs brought a flavor of South Florida to F1 over the weekend and VIPs flocked to the paddock. Over the years, the likes of the Williams sisters, David Beckham, Ed Sheeran, Michael Jordan and Paris Hilton have walked through the Hard Rock Stadium campus. About 242,000 people attended the inaugural Miami Grand Prix, but teams of restaurant chefs involved in the event had no idea what to expect when preparing meals on campus.
Thousands of pounds of food are made over a three-day weekend, from simple ingredients like regular produce to filet mignon. By the end of the 2022 weekend, approximately 90,000 pounds of food will remain, equivalent to approximately 75,000 meals — a lot of food to save.
Food insecurity is increasing in the United States, especially in South Florida. The Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion defines the term as “a household’s economic and social situation in which access to adequate food is limited or uncertain.” The nonprofit Feeding South Florida found that more than 1.2 million people in Broward, Miami-Dade, Palm Beach and Monroe counties will face food insecurity on Thanksgiving 2023.
Enter Food Rescue USA – the go-between and solution to Miami’s F1 food glut problem. The nonprofit’s volunteers collect leftover usable food (such as food not used in buffets) and deliver the leftover food to local agencies, such as homeless shelters and food pantries. But if the food isn’t saved, it’s likely that it will end up in landfills. The South Florida office has partnered with Hard Rock Stadium for several years to provide leftover food from college and pro football games to local organizations.
When F1 comes to town, it’s only natural that the South Florida Chapter of Food Rescue America partners with Hard Rock Stadium again.
“I remember them calling me and saying, ‘Ellen, we just got F1,'” said site director Ellen Bowen. “‘Think Super Bowl three times.'”
how it works
The food rescue mission didn’t begin until after the Grand Prix weekend.
During the competition’s first year, volunteers spent three days collecting and delivering leftover food, which she describes as food that could be sold or served but would not leave the kitchen. In 2022, products range from pulled pork to vegetables and pastries. “It’s really shocking,” Bowen said. “It took us three days to complete the work, with about 125 volunteers working basically four-hour shifts.”
It’s not possible to save 100% on extra food – for example, media catering is buffet style. But saving 90,000 pounds in the first year required a monumental effort, not only to provide meals but also to keep food out of landfills.
“Miami and Broward counties are running out of landfill space. The incinerator we were using burned down last year. So we as an organization and I think as a county are really trying to find a way to reduce Actual waste,” Bowen added. “The organizations that we provide food to, they’re homeless shelters, they’re community-based organizations that serve underserved communities, whether it’s through churches or community centers, we put food into community refrigerators in. So all of this food that we rescue goes to people who may have never had filet mignon before, or who really need this quality, healthy, nutritious food.
The next year, as the existing kitchen staff hired more employees to help store food, the number of volunteers decreased, leaving American Food Rescue South Florida to coordinate the shipments. As the Grand Prix weekend comes to an end, the kitchen staff knows what to expect and the food glut is reduced – but “on par with the Super Bowl in terms of quantity”.
Bowen estimates that the following year produced 60,000 pounds of food, or 50,000 meals; by 2024, that number will total 65,000 pounds, or about 55,000 meals. (Miami Grand Prix managing partner Tom Garfinkel estimated that last weekend’s 2024 race drew 275,000 fans.) According to the USDA, a meal is about 1.2 pounds, so you divide the weight of the food by Use 1.2 to determine the estimated number of meals it will take.
The process has remained essentially the same over the years (but was shortened by one day this year) – food prepared on the first day, remaining prepared food, salads and produce, and unused items such as plates and cups on the second day , as well as condiments and bread on the third day. In 2024, the operation took just two days and seven trucks to reach six different shelters in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. “If there’s a can of ketchup that they’re not using, like a big batch, we’re going to do that, too, because if you think about what happens once the Grand Prix is over and that site shuts down, and they Don’t want to store something that might expire.
American Food Rescue – South Florida does the same thing during football season, such as when the Dolphins don’t have a home game for two weeks. “It’s very dependent on, can they use it quickly? Can they freeze it and use it? Or do they just not want to use it in the near future to keep it,” Bowen said.
food requirements
Nor can they save all the food on campus.
American Food Rescue will not be accepting hot meals, Bowen said. It needs to be refrigerated and cooled, so they don’t start F1 operations until the Monday after the race weekend. Food must also be stored in airtight containers with a food label and packaging date.
However, the organization and chefs also adhere to other guidelines, such as ServSafe (which provides alcohol and food safety training) and the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act. Bowen said the federal law essentially “allows any food donated in good faith to be exempt from liability.”
When it comes to who gets the leftover food first, Bowen said she would “try to support homeless shelters first because of their ability to store and freeze trays of food.” She works primarily with four Collaborating with larger shelters, all of which can reheat food and handle large quantities of food safely.
The remaining food will be distributed among smaller food pantries, which often do not have full kitchens like homeless shelters or the ability to reheat food. They often receive produce and non-perishable food items because these are “more shelf stable and can be distributed as groceries.”
Take a look at the overall situation
Food insecurity continues to be a worldwide problem, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic. In Florida, affordable housing is limited and gas and grocery prices continue to rise, Bowen said.
“I think the people who think they’re food insecure now are probably the people who never thought they were food insecure before COVID-19,” she added. “The statistics are shocking. Forty percent of food is wasted. But I know that in Florida, one in 10 people goes to bed hungry, and one in five of them are children. So we’re It doesn’t do a great job of feeding its own population, and part of that is providing them with nutritious food.
As a result, Food Rescue USA South Florida focuses on delivering surplus food to underserved communities, particularly food desert areas. Healthy and affordable food is lacking or difficult to access in these areas. “They’re shopping at their local corner tavern,” Bowen said. “They don’t have a Trader Joe’s or a Whole Foods in their backyard. They have a low-end supermarket or grocery store to shop at, and many of them need assistance and have to spend all that money.
Miami’s food desert neighborhoods include Little Haiti, Little Havana, Liberty City, Uptown, and Miami Gardens (home of Hard Rock Stadium, where the Grand Prix is held).
Saving food surpluses doesn’t just help feed underserved communities. It also helps reduce the amount of food waste in landfills, ultimately mitigating the long-term effects of climate change.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that food waste has a significant impact on climate change. According to a recent report on quantifying methane emissions from U.S. landfills, researchers found that “an estimated 58 percent of fugitive methane emissions (methane released into the atmosphere) from MSW landfills come from buried food waste.” When organic waste, including food waste, decomposes, it converts into methane, which NASA calls “a powerful greenhouse gas” and “the second largest contributor to climate warming after carbon dioxide (CO2).” EPA research shows that methane also comes from other sources, such as fossil fuels and agriculture, but diverting food from landfills can help reduce climate impact.
F1 continues to say that sustainability is a top priority for the sport and aims to achieve net zero carbon by 2030. 13%.
“Whatever we can do, and anyone can do, will contribute to truly reversing climate change by keeping food out of landfills,” Bowen said.
Top Photo: Ellen Bowen/Food Rescue South Florida USA
