Question of the Day - 27 December 2018

We get this question regularly and thought that a couple days after Christmas (and its abundance of food in most places) would be an appropriate time to tackle it again.

The old standby is the pig farm.

R.C. Farms was located in the far northern part of the valley for many decades, but the city expanded in that direction and, combined with complaints about the odor of the place, it compelled the owner, Robert Combs, to sell the farm a couple years ago. Shortly thereafter, Bob’s granddaughter, Sarah Stallard, helped start Las Vegas Livestock 30 miles northeast of downtown off of I-15 (near Apex, Nevada, a heavily industrial district). LVL is zoned for up to 12,000 pigs, but currently has closer to 5,000, which can go through all the waste food generated from Aria, Bellagio, Luxor, and the Venetian. Other casinos want to send their "scraps" to LVL, but the farm would need more pigs to use it all.

In terms of human use, MGM Resorts is a leader in food recycling. Early this year, it donated nearly $750,000 to Three Square, a local food bank, “to receive and redistribute unserved food from catered events” at Aria, Bellagio, and Mandalay Bay. This is unserved hot banquet food, which Three Square “repurposes” into full meals. Groups such as Catholic Charities of Southern Nevada and the Las Vegas Rescue Mission can buy the food for 19 cents a pound for proteins and nine cents a pound for carbohydrates and other food.

The grant money pays for labor, gasoline, food trays, warming cabinets, and freezers. In its first year, an estimated 56,000 meals were saved and repurposed by Three Square, and the goal is to hit 800,000 meals by 2020.

MGM also recycles leftover packaged food from minibars in hotel rooms that can’t be sold after its expiration dates, but can be consumed up to a year past them. These snacks, such as cookies, nuts, chips, and energy bars, are donated to community agencies for special events.

The Venetian and Palazzo also donate food to Catholic Charities.

The other direction casinos are taking is “diversion” — reducing the leftovers to begin with. The Venetian/Palazzo, Station Casinos, and Caesars Entertainment have all instituted diversion practices, such as smaller serving dishes in buffets, smaller portions in employee dining rooms, and food-saving procedures in restaurant kitchens. Station Casinos says it has reduced food waste by 40% over the past year.

As time goes along, we expect to see a lot more attention paid to the contradictions of an excess of food in the resort corridor and a lack of it in some other sections of the city.