Steve McGlocklin’s Whatever Pops is a hip frozen-treat enclave located in Tampa’s Seminole Heights neighborhood. He designed it so as little food as possible would be wasted.
Throwing food away is a big deal. In fact, about 40 percent of consumable food in the United States is wasted.
But McGlocklin wants to be even better, so he signed up with Waste No Food. It is a phone app connecting restaurants, hotels, caterers and farms that don’t want to throw food away with shelters and food banks that desperately need food.
“If we do have waste, let’s say it’s baked items or something like that, we got the app and can let them know they can come put it to good use,” McGlocklin says.
And even if a restaurant’s offering is beyond edible, the leftover food can still be used for compost or fertilizer purposes on farms, keeping it out of landfills.
Waste No Food started in California. The Tampa Bay area is just its second spot.
Seeing as how one in seven people here do not know where their next meal is coming from, the app’s arrival could not have come at a better time.
Local restaurants curious about helping can reach out for more information.
Anything a restaurant can do is “still extremely valuable to that small shelter on the corner that’s about to host a spaghetti dinner on a Friday to feed 100 homeless in Tampa,” says Caitlyn Peacock, executive director of the Tampa Bay Network to End Hunger.
To learn more about the Tampa Bay Network to End Hunger, Waste No Food and upcoming events, visit networktoendhunger.org/education/wastenofood/.
If you have any questions about the app, please email Tyler Hoerst or Whitney Fung.
