On any given Tuesday evening at the Starbucks in Payson Library, students will wait at the counter, receiving bags of packaged pastries and sandwiches — all free of charge.
It is a part of the fight against wasting food and food insecurity at Pepperdine.
These students are members of the 7-year-old Food Recovery Network club, which rescues unconsumed food from events on campus and gives it to local nonprofits. Club President Belle Li said that they also collect unsold food items from Starbucks baristas every Tuesday and Thursday.
“One of my goals is to make sure every single person at Pepperdine knows the Food Recovery Network,” Li said. “So that anyone holding an event could think of the Food Recovery Network when there is extra food.”
Bon Appétit, Pepperdine’s dining service provider, also sends unsold food to a California-founded nonprofit, according to Business Services.
California Food-Recovery Mandate
Former Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 1383, also known as the Short-Lived Climate Pollutants Reduction Strategy, into law in 2016.
Methane, a greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere, is a significant short-lived climate pollutant. Landfill decomposition is its major contributor, according to NASA. SB 1383 aims to lower statewide methane emissions and set specific targets for waste diversion.
The bill requires businesses to recycle food scraps into compost and renewable energy. Jurisdictions across the state must reduce organic waste disposal by 75% and rescue 20% of surplus food by 2025, compared to the 2016 levels, according to CalRecycle.
“Compost should be one of the last things that we do,” said Chris Doran, a Religion and Sustainability professor. “It should not be one of the first things we do. We should want to get edible food to people’s mouths as quickly as possible and as much as possible.”
The bill requires food donors to recover the maximum amount of edible food that would otherwise go to waste. In 2023, local programs in California recovered over 217,000 tons of unsold food, according to CalRecycle.
The California government mandated that tier two commercial edible food generators — including large dining facilities over 250 seats — establish an edible food recovery program by Jan. 1, 2024. The Waves Café at Pepperdine has 600 seats.
Students Leading the Effort
In 2017, Pepperdine students founded a chapter for Food Recovery Network, a national nonprofit with hundreds of collegiate chapters dedicated to saving edible food that would otherwise go to waste.
Li joined the club in her first year to help her friend Noelle Alderton (‘24) who was the then-president trying to revive the club post-COVID. Li soon became deeply involved in managing the logistics and led food recovery abroad during her sophomore year in Buenos Aires.
“My passion is in social justice and climate justice,” Li said. “The reason why a lot of problems that we have now exist is because we also have social injustices. If you’re hurting people, you’re also hurting the environment.”
The club accepts recovery requests through an online form or direct contact with executive members, then dispatches volunteers based on availability. The student leading the recovery will pack the collected food into their own car, drive it to a food bank contact person and log the weight into a public spreadsheet, Li said.
The Food Recovery Network’s regular sources of food collection include admission events, New Student Orientation, Starbucks and end-of-semester food drives.
Starbucks Manager Chris Grandelli said he introduced training for regular collaboration with students after starting his role at Pepperdine. The shift supervisor will set aside all items with end-of-day expirations and employees will pack the food in advance on collection days for the Food Recovery Network.
“All of the food that we carry, we only have for one to two days,” Grandelli said. “So after one to two days, we mark it expired, and it’s still very good, perfectly healthy to eat and everything. It’s just for quality standards and just to be on the safer-than-sorry side.”
To ensure food quality between Tuesdays and Thursdays, Starbucks employees sometimes bring items down to Waves Café’s freezer, Grandelli said. Bon Appétit manages both locations, according to the dining service’s website.
Grandelli said that before coming to the Pepperdine Starbucks, he worked at another coffee shop in Los Angeles, where he personally looked for locations seeking food donations.
“I’m really happy to have a group like Food Recovery Network on campus that can do this with us,” Grandelli said.
Malibu Volunteers Serve Saved Food
After food collection, Kay Gabbard is the club’s go-to contact, Li said. Gabbard is on the board of directors of the Malibu Community Assistance Resource Team (CART), a nonprofit offering various resources to the unhoused population.
Gabbard is also the board president of Malibu Community Labor Exchange and works with the Malibu United Methodist Church. The three locations are primary destinations for student-collected food.
Lea Johnson, also director of CART, said the team stores food and cooks well-balanced hot meals throughout the week in the kitchen of Serra Retreat, a Roman Catholic retreat center in Malibu, to serve members in need at different locations.
“You do not have to be unhoused to come to our meal,” Gabbard said. “You just have to be hungry.”
Gabbard serves on Mondays at Malibu United Methodist Church, Wednesdays at Zuma Beach and Fridays on Malibu Road. Johnson and CART President Terry Davis serve lunch on Tuesdays and Thursdays on Malibu Road.
Johnson said most members they serve are from the local community, but not all.
“I had one new person come last Tuesday from San Diego,” Johnson said. “And he said he walked on the beach. It took him two weeks to get to Malibu.”
The person always loved Malibu, Johnson said. He could not afford transportation or accommodation, so he slept on the beach during the nights.
Obstacles That Limit Progress
Serving on a volunteer basis, CART and the Food Recovery Network at Pepperdine face similar challenges of lacking manpower.
“The bottom line in this country is that no one should go hungry,” Gabbard said. “But people do because there’s really not enough of a system yet to get all of that extra food to people. It’s very labor intensive, as you might imagine.”
Li said it is difficult to recruit long-term club members because food recovery requires time and service commitment.
Another hurdle for students is low visibility. Li said there are still plenty of potential food rescue opportunities since many departments were unaware of the club’s existence before she reached out.
“There are times where there are big bags,” Li said. “Which makes you think, like, that’s so crazy. If we didn’t come to pick that up, that would have just been thrown in the trash.”
Senior Catherine Davis said she had not heard of the food recovery projects on campus.
“I’m really glad that there are people who are seeing this waste,” Davis said. “I would love to hear more about this.”
Davis said she wishes to see more discussion about the club’s efforts on campus so that more students can join the Food Recovery Network.
Doran said one simple solution is having the department review event requests to add a checkbox in the approval process.
Doran believes fighting food waste and hunger should be a priority for a Christian university, given the significance of compassion and communion, but it isn’t yet a focus at Pepperdine.
“I think one of the things that’s so sad for me as an alum of Pepperdine, but also as a professor here,” Doran said, “Is that we don’t seem to see the intersection of our Christian values with food and food waste here on campus.”
Li said the Dining Services frustrated her because Food Recovery Network faced multiple pushbacks when reaching out for edible food collection or compost sources from Waves Café.
Bon Appétit’s Mission to Reduce Food Waste
Jennifer Freedman, director of Business Services, oversees third-party services on campus, such as Bon Appétit. Freedman said she is not familiar with the obstacles Li has faced, but the department is willing to help.
“If we can find ways to partner with our Food Recovery Network or our students, we want to learn, and we’re always open to that,” Freedman said.
Freedman said Bon Appétit has been an outstanding partner since they became Pepperdine’s dining service provider in 2022.
“They are collaborative, flexible, they are solution-oriented,” Freedman said. “They were selected not only because of their excellent food and their incredible teams but also because of our shared values.”
USDA and EPA recognized Bon Appétit as a U.S. Food Loss and Waste 2030 Champion in 2016, acknowledging the business’s pledge to reduce food waste by 50% in 2030, according to Bon Appétit’s website.
Freedman said their dining service partner commits to minimizing waste before, during and after food production.
Business Services supports food waste reduction by communicating upcoming events five days in advance with Bon Appétit to ensure optimal food ordering and production, Freedman said.
Bon Appétit also has its established chain combating food waste. Vesta Foodservice, the dining service’s primary provider, collects unused food from Waves Café six days a week in refrigerated trucks when dropping off ingredients in the morning. Drivers then deliver rescued food to the food recovery nonprofit Chefs to End Hunger.
Freedman said Bon Appétit requested data on how much rescued food it has donated and is still waiting for responses from Vesta Foodservice and Chefs to End Hunger.
Bon Appétit’s on-site waste weighing and tracking system, Waste Not, is still under development. Freedman said the system is expected to start next year.
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Contact Laury Li via email: yuting.li2@pepperdine.edu or by Instagram: @laury__li
