When headlining acts like Jay-Z, Vampire Weekend, Muse, and Atoms for Peace took the stage at one of the largest festivals in the music world, there was one person there that wasn’t there for the show. Bart Freebairn, the kitchen manager for Roy’s Desert Resource Center, was given access to Coachella this past weekend to collect the food that festivalgoers did not purchase. Thanks to a collaboration between his agency, Best Beverage Catering, and Rock & Wrap It Up!, Bart was able to collect the prepared but not sold food from on-site vendors and return it to his facility to feed his clients.
Rock & Wrap It Up! is an anti-poverty think tank that has been working for nearly two decades to fight hunger. Using greening tactics, this organization recovers food and other assets and arranges for their donation to agencies fighting poverty. By setting up a partnership between the many food vendors at Coachella and Bart’s kitchen, Rock & Wrap It Up! was able to reduce the festival’s food waste while also helping to feed the people of Coachella Valley. Food pickups occurred on each of the three nights of the festival. Items collected included hot dogs, hamburgers and veggie burgers, and a seafood assortment that the kitchen staff used to make jambalaya.
This isn’t the first time that Rock & Wrap It Up! has emerged on the festival scene. The not-for-profit organization has been collecting food from concerts, festivals, and traveling road shows since the early 1990s. To date, they have worked with over 150 bands on the collection of all prepared but not served catering leftovers. In doing so they have helped feed the people of over 500 cities. Rock & Wrap It Up! also has a great relationship with Nikon at Jones Beach Theater, from which they collect all concession food in addition to backstage tour catering.
Working with a volunteer task force of over 5,000 people nationwide, Rock & Wrap It Up! has been able to aid in the feeding of over 500,000,000 of this country’s food insecure. In addition to its asset recovery work in music, Rock & Wrap It Up! is also involved in schools, sports, entertainment, and the hospitality industry. In 2008 they penned the Federal Food Donation Act, which encourages federal buildings to feed our nation’s hungry with excess generated from their food services.
