Tyler White: Fighting Food Insecurity with Culinary Ingenuity at University of Tennessee

Can repurposing leftover food truly transform a community? Join us on this captivating episode of the Walk-In Talk Podcast as we spotlight the extraordinary food4vols initiative, led by the passionate and inventive Tyler White. With 25 years of culinary expertise, Tyler has taken a simple idea—repurposing high-quality leftover food—and turned it into a lifesaving mission against food insecurity at the University of Tennessee. From Crescent City Meats' eclectic sausage offerings to the unforgettable mortadella sandwich with burrata and pistachio puree, this episode is a feast of both flavors and inspiration. #Metro #KitchenStorageMakeover 

Kitchen Storage Makeover
https://fesmag.com/ksm

Learn more:
https://rhtm.utk.edu/food4vols/

Discover the intricate journey of establishing a food redistribution program on a college campus, a challenge that Tyler and his team have embraced head-on. Learn about the hurdles they encountered, from financing and acquiring vehicles to ensuring food safety and handling an unexpectedly high volume of food waste. Tyler's dedication and resourcefulness shine through as he recounts the creative solutions implemented, such as using pool noodles to stabilize hotel pans, and the impressive capacity to produce up to 600 meals a day th

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Chapters

• 0:37 Food Podcast Highlights Culinary Winners
• 7:33 Food for Vols Campus Initiative
• 10:35 Overcoming Hurdles in Food Redistribution
• 15:43 Scaling Food Distribution Operation Success
• 25:44 Food Redistribution Program Operations and Impact
• 37:13 Food Redistribution Program Fundraising and Support

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:37

Hello Food Fam. This is the Walk Talk podcast where you will find the perfect blend of food fun and cooking knowledge. I'm your host, carl Fiorini. Welcome to the number one food podcast in the country. We're recording on site at Ibis Images Studios, where food photography comes alive and I get to eat it. If you missed last week's episode with first watch corporate chef Big Daddy Shane, I love him. It's a must listen and their food is a must eat. Go check out all of their locations across the country. So I'm into quality made smoked fish dips and spreads, and I know you are too. Check out our friends over at Crab Island Seafood Company. The Mahi Dip is magical and I mean that sincerely. Visit them at crabislandseafooddipcom.

Speaker 1: 1:27

Doc's own, pooch Rivera and Pius Media's Glenn Haggerty traveled over to Knoxville, tennessee. You've kind of heard me talking about this for a while. They covered Metro Shelving's kitchen storage makeover. This is an amazing contest created by Metro Storage and Distribution Systems in conjunction with FENS Magazine. Well, we've got the winner and recipient, mr Tyler White. He is from Food for Vols. It's a real feel-good story. Tyler and his father help feed people lots of them. We're doing a really cool thing with this and I can't wait to jump into it. It's curbing food insecurity. It's a cool thing. Stand by, tyler is on deck and Jefferson, my man, how you doing, I'm fabulous man. All right, john, I'm not even going to ask you an answer, it doesn't matter. Well, he will, he just like this, all right. So Crescent City Meats All right, we got the meats. Sausage.

Speaker 2: 2:31

We got the sausage, the sausage. All right, talk about it. We got the sausage, the sausage, talk about it. I can't wait to dig into this one, especially because one has got pork and crawfish. Then we have the brand is called Boudin, but it is actually pork burnt ends brisket. Can't wait to get into that one. And then the last one is that gator, and then that one we're going to do like a almost like a hotdog style, but without relish and without sauerkraut. I'm actually going to convert that into Cajun spiced coast law. And then I did a drunken Bing cherries. So I did like vodka and soaked them, but like about a Bing cherry.

Speaker 1: 3:08

Yeah About a Bing, okay, okay.

Speaker 2: 3:10

And then made a relish with that, with the Marasaki peppers that I grow in the garden and some red pepper, and then some scallions and stuff like that. But then we also have dulce de leche ribs. I can't wait to try this one. Infused it with a little bit of chipotle, so think salted caramel on pork. And then I did an apple relish or apple slaw and then, by the way, no mayonnaise, john, yeah, he's happy. And then I did a peach vinegar to add to that, and then little sliced julienne onion, red onion to be specific, and then your favorite candied pecan. So I wanted to have that apple.

Speaker 2: 3:48

The dulce de leche, almost like an apple pie on the pork, is what I was going for. And then I did these stuffed chicken legs with guava and whipped brie herbs, pulled the skin back and then filled it back in with the puree of chicken, with all that stuff, stuffed chicken, and then baked it off with a scotch bonnet, agave, coconut rum glaze, that one, I was really like wowed by that one, just because it stayed together and it looked like a chicken leg. And lastly, we're doing a really good burger, a riff on, like my buddy george patty down there meat tap room. It's gonna have peanut butter, peanut butter powder with banana like fluff, and then the burger john's ancho right, there are ancho peppers yeah john's from from the garden, from the garden here roasted those off.

Speaker 2: 4:41

We're gonna have a little bit of cheese in there and then some just really good food today.

Speaker 1: 4:45

So you're gonna be, you're gonna be really happy I mean I'm happy now thinking about it, right, I mean I've seen all the ingredients. You gave me a a little uh flavor spoonful of that pistachio puree.

Speaker 2: 4:58

That's the goomba, yeah, mortadella sandwich yeah, mortadella sandwich with burrata the the curd inside the burrata is what I'm going to melt on top. And then that one's going to have the pistachio puree, roasted garlic puree. Just one of those sandwiches that you feel like nonna just made you a sandwich because you're not feeling well and it's just going to hug you in the inside. So something like that you know?

Speaker 1: 5:18

I mean, I, I'd like to have that today, right, you know?

Speaker 2: 5:21

you're all, you're all bamboozled with the whole bunch of, with the kids and this and that, and I got you, got you.

Speaker 1: 5:26

Oh yeah, you know it, this has been probably this is a rough start of the school year.

Speaker 2: 5:32

You know, for the last couple of weeks, man, it has been one heck of a transition I will say this the jump from elementary school for my daughter to the wake-up call going to middle school, it's, she's. I've never seen my kid go to bed at nine o'clock, like willingly go to bed at nine o'clock. And you mentioned, uh, chef sugar shane over there on, uh, first watch. Yeah, I went there sunday. I took the family. Oh, no, kidding, yeah, I went over to. And and you mentioned Chef Sugar Shane over there on First Watch. Yeah, I went there Sunday, I took the family. Oh, no, kidding, yeah, I went over to. And I forgot, totally forgot, being what he said 23 of them are test kitchens. Yeah, I'm like, oh, you guys are going to be getting the dragon. What was the dragon called the Blazing Dragon? Like, no, we're not. Like, oh man, I forgot. And the whole reason why I wanted Jillian to try the Blazing Dragon, that drink was going to be awesome.

Speaker 2: 6:18

But no she had something else which she loved.

Speaker 1: 6:20

Yeah, actually there was a fellow who, so that you know, obviously we John's photography is top notch and somebody reached out to me after seeing some of the photos of that drink and it was actually a local gin manufacturer, distiller, whatever, and yeah, we're going to talk and he's going to drop some product off. John just perked up. Yeah, because you know, remember, in that post I don't know if that was Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever, but you know, somebody mentioned like hey, this would be some, uh, some booze, and I was like 100 anyway, I think it was me that day right.

Speaker 1: 7:00

Where's the gin on that right and on that same thread post is this cat. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, so anyway nothing better yeah, yeah. So it'll be fun. We're gonna we to rock that out. All right, so without further ado, let's welcome today's guest, mr Tyler White. How are you doing, sir? I'm doing well, excellent man. Thank you for being on the show today.

Speaker 3: 7:26

No problem.

Speaker 1: 7:27

And you're the winner. I mean, that's awesome, we are the winner, you are, you are the champion. So this thing is a big deal, this with Metro, you know, they, they, they call out $50,000, you know worth of a kitchen storage makeover, but it's, it's definitely more than that. I know that it is, and it's a great, it's a terrific sort of I don't know if you call it a competition, but it's amazing. And you know, tyler, here is the recipient.

Speaker 3: 8:07

You know, tyler, why don't you go ahead and give like the 30,000 foot view of where you come from, what you do in food and you know? Kind of lay that out All right? Well, my history I've been working in kitchens for about 25 years. I've been working in kitchens for about 25 years. Started out in North Carolina when I got my bachelor's at Western Carolina University, came to the University of Tennessee to get my master's in hospitality and tourism and then kind of stayed on board here at the university teaching culinary arts and then just recently we launched the Food for Ball program here at the University of Tennessee in 2021. So somewhat of a long span of being in kitchens and teaching all together.

Speaker 1: 8:38

Yeah, that's terrific. At some point, you know, maybe we could arrange to have you here and you can, you know, cook in studio. We can do some cool photography and stuff like that and kind of put help help to. You know, put the word out with what you're doing, can you? How did you get started with this food for vols, cause? This is, you know, put the word out with what you're doing, can you? How did you get started with this food for vols, cause? This is, you know, food insecurity is kind of a you know big thing right now, and how did you get into this?

Speaker 3: 9:05

So we got into this meeting with the sustainability manager here on UTK campus, which he does a really good job of composting, and the manager came to me saying, hey, there's all this food being wasted on campus. Ut does a really good job of composting. And the manager came to me saying, hey, there's all this food being wasted on campus and it's like really good food, Like it's not chicken tenders and fries and things like that. It's like salmon and these other things. So we met and said what can we do about it? There's all these students who are hungry. Ut had just released a report that 30% of college students were food insecure and we started kind of piecing everything together and said I think we can do something here. We have the facility, we have the equipment, I have myself and that's kind of where Pooper Balls originated from was. We understood there was waste on campus and we understood there was hunger on campus and we kind of fused the two together campus and we understood there was hunger on campus and we kind of fused the two together.

Speaker 1: 9:56

So at what moment did you realize that this was an actual I don't want to say a business model? But you know that you can actually execute this and make it go.

Speaker 3: 10:04

So we started in 2020, right Kind of during COVID is when we figured out okay, we need to do something. And 20, we had an AmeriCorps VISTA member here for for a year helping us research, figuring it out. We talked to a lot of other universities about what they were doing in order to figure out what Food for Balls was going to be. We very underestimated what it could be, because it's a monster now, but it was in that 2020, right after post-COVID is kind of when we figured out how to piece it all together.

Speaker 1: 10:36

Well, what were some of the hurdles that you faced when you were trying to kick this off?

Speaker 3: 10:40

Financing is a big one. The food is free on campus. That's the easy part, right. I can collect all the overproduced food for free, but we had to acquire a vehicle to go around and collect it. We had to overcome everybody's doubts about food safety so we work with the Knox County Health Department on that on what we needed to do to abide by all the regulations and stuff that we have here in Tennessee, which really isn't that much.

Speaker 3: 11:04

Then we had to figure out how we were going to make the meals. Where were we going to store them? What packaging were we going to use? There was a ton of little itty bitty hurdles. Packaging were we going to use? There was a ton of little itty bitty hurdles. The biggest hurdle that we had to overcome was we got too much food. We under predicted how much food we were going to get. We thought we would get maybe 6,000 pounds from October to May in an academic year and we got 20,000 pounds in the first two months. So that was our biggest hurdle was overcoming our lack of knowledge on how much food waste there actually was.

Speaker 2: 11:37

Can you repeat that number 20,000 pounds in two months.

Speaker 3: 11:43

Yeah. So now for us here UT we have a small football team that does kind of okay at some other sports and we didn't anticipate collecting from athletics, from football games. And in those first two months that we launched I had a little Dodge van and we collected 20,000 pounds of food in the first two months that we operated.

Speaker 2: 12:04

So tell us when you, when you're mentioning cause, some of the listeners are foodies and they don't realize about, you know, the cold chain and and it has up and what that means, and why do we have to be so vigilant about the, the cold chain?

Speaker 3: 12:18

yeah. So we're really particular about where we pick up what and how we do. We provide all the containers. We control a lot of the temperature, so I have refrigerated vans that go and get it. We make sure that the food is at temp when we get it. We cool it down and kind of monitor it the whole way. We have access to all dinings temp logs at all times too. If we wanted to pull and test something we get to see on their hot boxes at the football games, every time they temp that hot box pulling that food out. So we're very vigilant in making sure that everything we're touching has been handled correctly up until the time we get it as well.

Speaker 2: 12:57

So you still have to do and follow more strict protocols than, let's say, maybe a restaurant would because of the HACCP that you're dealing with, already cooked or RTE food or raw food coming into your facility and then redistributing it, correct?

Speaker 3: 13:12

No. So there's a big loophole in Tennessee about what they'll regulate and what they won't regulate. So really we don't have a lot of the health department because everything we do is for free. We fall under the Good Samaritans Act. As long as we're handling it in good faith, that we're following the rules and while dining, followed all the rules, that's all we're really held liable to. We go above and beyond and make sure that we're temping and doing stuff, but the state really only monitors what I do in the academic classroom. They really don't monitor what we do in our nonprofit. That's free. Now, if I was charging for this food, if I was charging all the recipients who get all the food, we then kind of fall under the restaurant regulations and things like that. But because we're doing everything for free and we're doing in good faith, there's actually very little regulation, which is a little bit scary.

Speaker 1: 14:36

Well, you know. So let's switch gears a little bit into Metro, right? So you, you were picked, you were chosen and they came in and they did this. I saw the before and after pictures and they did a pretty amazing makeover at the uh at the kitchen. Can you talk about what they've done?

Speaker 3: 14:57

Yeah. So they came in and ended up um renovating six different areas and some of the areas are not things they normally do. We have an 18-foot box truck that they were able to get on and, like I said, it's the heart of our operation. That truck runs all day, every day, collecting and distributing food and they had to come up with some really neat ways to make it safer for our workers to go out and collect this food, to store it on the truck, so that things aren't sliding around and falling over. So the truck was really something that they hadn't really dabbled in before when it comes to what Metro does. But a lot of their shelving things they already had in existence could be modified. So it was really neat to see the creativity the team had in how to address a truck for transportation.

Speaker 3: 15:44

The other five rooms. They did really well impacts what we're able to do here. So we've made up to 350 to 400 meals a day in the past and we told Metro, hey, we need to get to 500 or 600. So they spent a lot of time in our production facility putting in new tables and new shelving so that we can get more students, volunteers, in there making these meals, tables and stuff they put in there was the top of the line of what they had and and for us is like the, the cadillac of our facility now is what metro put in. That's what we're going to show off, because that's the best thing we have here tyler, tell me how pool noodles, a pool noodle and a food rack go together.

Speaker 3: 16:35

So we started out. One of the hurdles was financing and me and our football coordinator his name is Andrew White, he's my father, so he and I are creative. We're also really big hoarders and we needed a way to collect like 30 to 40 hotel pans of food at a time and Bye, bye, baby closed and they had some of their movable racks. So we went and bought those, but the pans slide in it because this doesn't fit perfectly. It wasn't meant for food pans. I was able to bend the pans with some pliers to make it fit, but they were sliding. So we thought what can we put in there? One of them has a ratchet strap that goes through it. The other ones have pool noodles that we take together so that we can wedge it in there so the pans don't slide. Pool noodles are like a buck a piece. With $2, we can do a shelf and then it works for what we need it to. We're creative.

Speaker 1: 17:33

And hoarders. Well, the hoarding thing helped out a lot in this case because, like I said, I saw the, I saw the photos of the before and after and I'm looking at the rack and I'm like what the hell is the deal with the, with the pool noodles? But you know, it served. It served the purpose. How many times do I have to tell you chefs are macgyvers? 100, 100 I mean it really is it worked?

Speaker 2: 17:49

but it's, you know, it's so funny. It's like you seem more passionate about and I would be too, because it's so cool when you have structure. That Metro came in. You sound more excited about the shelving and the ability to store more than it would be the actual making the food for the product or for the people, correct, because it's going to be, it's going to be a lot more.

Speaker 3: 18:10

It's like Christmas then coming now and AJ and them who are here, we're like here you go. It's like I can store more stuff, I can hoard more I can I get to keep all the other racks. We move somewhere and we're like, well, where do we store on those now? So, yeah, no it.

Speaker 2: 18:25

It was like christmas, getting all this new space to put more things I will say that when you, when you're dealing with a truck when I worked for a broadliner it was difficult we would use the trailer for storage unit and to put just a speed rack, because they're not flat floors, they've got grooves, obviously, and you can't work in that and it's slippery, it's dangerous. So it's funny how, how metro, because of the talent they have with their engineers, can walk in and just design something right there for you. I would.

Speaker 1: 18:57

I can't wait to see pictures of that. Yeah, well, I can't wait to see the video because, basically so, aj, you know, from metro, we had a, we had a call the other day and it was an impromptu sort of thing and we just kind of, you know, recapped on the trip over there. So the work, the manual labor that goes into, you know, doing these makeovers, is astounding. And you know you're talking about measurements and you're talking about, you know, pieces and little pieces and more pieces and other things, and now you're talking about oh hey, we're short here on you know product A, b or C, so now they're overnighting. You know other, you know the, the, the, the fix or the missing part or whatever. It's a huge endeavor and I mean, and I want to give a serious applaud to, to AJ and the team for at Metro for doing this, I mean it is really a feel-good story. It needs to be done more and more.

Speaker 1: 20:00

And it needs to be done and, Tyler, you were saying how there's a way to scale this out too correct?

Speaker 3: 20:07

Correct, so our program really doesn't take that much to run. Like I have one staff member, andrew, I help oversee some of the purchasing and things like that. He's on the ground all day, every day, but it really isn't that complicated to replicate. So the University of South Carolina and Montana State University are in the process of replicating this on their campuses. I think they're launching spring of 25. It's a very easy thing to be able to replicate.

Speaker 2: 20:34

My thing is, I'm still trying to wrap my head around 20,000 pounds of extra food. That to me.

Speaker 3: 20:40

We did 160,000 pounds last year. We're on track to do almost 200,000 pounds this year. Football is two days away. We average on a football game 4,000 to 7,000 pounds now per football game. And that's not popcorn and chips and stuff. That's Skybox beef, prime rib and all these other different things coming out of the Skyboxes here. So we move a lot of food.

Speaker 1: 21:01

And just to be clear, people listening. This isn't like a half-eaten hot dog or something that they're repurposing.

Speaker 2: 21:58

It's all overproduction, right that's what I want to point out, it's the overproduction, and thank God that they noticed it and they came to you and said we have a problem. Here's a way we could feed more people instead of just putting it into the you know, whatever that trash bin or yeah, compost and trash and it's not their fault most of the time.

Speaker 3: 22:17

Like if it rains this weekend, half the people are going to leave early from the game and they still have all that food left. There's nothing. They couldn't have planned it any different. So we're blessed that we're here to be able to take that food and serve not only those on campus who are hungry, but we also reach four counties surrounding the university, from nonprofits, from homeless shelters to rehab facilities and ministries and things like that. So our reach continues to grow.

Speaker 2: 22:45

And then, what do you guys do as far as prep? How does that work? Do you get the food to make a menu, or is it just hey, we're going to do this.

Speaker 3: 22:53

Yeah, so Andrew is a trained executive chef. He's been in the industry for 40 plus years. So we collect the food we'll say in the afternoon. The next morning Andrew comes in and has to like jigsaw it all together and makes his menus Every day. We usually have between eight and 12 different menu options that we'll do, and it's different. He gets to piece it together. So he's the mad scientist looking at what am I going to do with the shrimp? What am I going to do with this enchilada sauce or this, whatever he has? And he creates brand new menu items every single day. Sometimes there's cooking involved, we get a lot of raw product, and sometimes it's as simple as just putting a couple things together and there's no other cooking needed. But he does that every single day.

Speaker 2: 23:38

I just want to let people know I'm laughing and rubbing my head because I do a menu every week and it's usually three to six items. He's doing that every single day.

Speaker 3: 23:50

I'm producing 40 to 50 of those meals for every menu item.

Speaker 1: 23:54

I mean, listen, this is one of those like. This is a me chilling sort of scenario here. These guys should get a star for the uh, the way they're turning their menus over and how many people prep with andrew so he does all the prep himself.

Speaker 3: 24:09

I help. Or we have an americorps member who helps a little bit just getting the food together. Simple, he can do it in in two to three hours each day. He spends kind of prepping and getting it together. To assemble the meals takes a small army and we generally have eight to ten people here making the meals, mostly made up of volunteers from the university. The students will come and volunteer and help us do this. I have a couple work-study students and the AmeriCorps member, so any given time we could have up to ten assembling the meals and they assemble all the meals in a two hour period in the afternoon. That's all we have that we can kind of set aside. So they're doing 300 to 400 meals in two hours every single day.

Speaker 1: 24:49

What's the process of finding volunteers and listing these people? How do you manage to do that?

Speaker 3: 24:56

It's actually quite simple. No, no, we don't have to do any of that that's awesome, so UT they've adopted a new site.

Speaker 3: 25:02

It's actually quite simple. No, no, we don't have to do any of that. That's awesome. So UT they've adopted a new site. It's called Give Pulse, and a lot of classes and a lot of programs on campus require volunteer. Right, we're the volunteers. So a lot of classes and organizations on campus require volunteer hours. So we post our stuff on a calendar that everybody can see. It logs the hours for the students and kind of tracks how many times they volunteered each year, and we fill up every single day. We do not have a problem getting volunteers, which is the opposite of what you think of, for a nonprofit operating like downtown Knoxville may struggle trying to find volunteers on a daily basis. We have wait lists on all our volunteer opportunities.

Speaker 1: 25:43

That's wonderful to hear. How are you tracking the progress of the effectiveness of the program?

Speaker 3: 25:50

So currently we track it based on production. The more meals we're making, the more meals that are being taken is the less food waste on campus. We recently got a couple grants that we are now creating surveys to go on and survey these students and we're trying to do some pre and post evaluations of what was your level of food insecurity before you found out about Food for Balls? What is it now that you've been using Food for Balls? So we are doing some survey and research on the specific students using our program.

Speaker 1: 26:20

What was when we spoke yesterday? The other day, a couple of days ago, you had mentioned that it isn't just students, correct? Go into how you're helping some like your ministry work, and get into some of that.

Speaker 3: 26:33

Yep. So we make these ready to microwave meals that we give to campus and that's open to staff members who might be making minimum wage. It goes to students whoever wants it, we don't care who needs to eat. But that's only a small portion. So last year we collected 160,000 pounds of food. 60,000 pounds went to campus, 100,000 went to community partners.

Speaker 3: 26:55

So Knox Area Rescue Ministries is one of our closest partners. They feed 300 people a day, three times a day breakfast, lunch and dinner. They deal mainly with homeless here in Knoxville and we give them food twice a week, upwards of 120 to 200 4-inch hotel pans of food every single week. That helps them feed and produce their 900 meals that they need to do every single week. We have other partners that are doing lots of work with people coming out of incarceration so they come and get our food and they're able to help these people eat. We have rehabilitation centers and ministries that come. We're willing to donate food to whoever needs it and we usually can't find enough partners to take the food. So Second Harvest of East Tennessee really has stepped in to help us identify these partners, bring them into us and we're able then to get the food further out into the communities that need it.

Speaker 1: 27:49

Are you having much waste yourself after the fact? Are you left kind of holding it back?

Speaker 3: 27:55

Very minimal food waste that we have on our end and any food waste we have goes into compost. Ut has a massive compost facility on campus so they are able to process all the food that we have. They can process all kinds of bones that I have left over from class, animal fat and things like that that are able to handle at their compost site. So we really are able to stop any food from going into the trash can because we make sure that it goes to compost and it all is going where it needs to go.

Speaker 1: 28:25

So if you're looking into 2026, right, or 20, you know, 25 into 26. Yeah, and 26. This was a multi-year question, Yep. Are there projections on the sort of is it the same? You know, sort of 200,000 pounds a year worth of food. Are you expecting that to be higher coming up into the next two years?

Speaker 3: 28:49

We don't know that we can physically collect more than 200,000. We think that might be our max of what we can hold in our one refrigerator per day collection and our hope is that when we collect all this food we document where did we get the food from, how much was it, was it protein, starch, vegetable dessert? And we give this data back to each facility that we collect it from. Our hope is to reduce waste and help with hunger at the same time. So our hope is that we don't maintain at 200,000 and we don't grow, because our program should help these companies reduce their amount of waste and overproduction, because they can look back at trends and say, hey, first week of school we're always overproducing. We have three years of data now that we can look back on and track and try to help these entities on campus do better. So hopefully we don't grow bigger than 200,000, because I don't think we can physically do it. So that's our hope.

Speaker 1: 29:47

Is there? I don't know the answer to this, so forgive me, but are you I mean, let's just say that you have these ready to eat meals that you're putting together, what's the? Are you allowed to ship those? Is there a way for somebody to you know they want to participate and help, kind of you know move the food, so to speak? Are they able to? Can you ship that?

Speaker 3: 30:09

Yeah, it's probably not something that we would be comfortable doing, unless we're looking at dry ice and able to make sure that we're freezing the meals Any overproduced meals that we have now we freeze and the students take home over the weekends or they do it over breaks and things like that. But we have found that freezing is an effective way to not let the food go out of date when we make these meals, but shipping might be complicated. Food go out of date and we make these meals, but shipping might be complicated. We are looking at a new program for the summer that we'll be trying to give these microwavable meals out in the summer to the community, but I don't think shipping is something that we'd be able to cost on. That, I think would probably make it out of the reach as well in order to ship.

Speaker 1: 30:50

So does everybody in the neighborhood. Is everyone aware of you?

Speaker 3: 30:56

No, very few know we exist and it's for a reason we like being a little bit quiet about what we do, because we don't want people to abuse the program and plan all of their meals through us and for those who don't need it. So we don't have a lot of marketing that we're doing right now. We don't have great websites or social media. We're working on that, but it's kind of we wanted to go pretty slow with the program. Make sure that we could meet the need, Cause the last thing I want is empty refrigerators on campus. That I manage. I don't want somebody who needs a meal to walk up and be like, oh no, there's nothing for me here. So we really try to try to manage what we can produce and make sure that everybody who's hungry gets it without running out.

Speaker 1: 31:39

So how are you walking that? That's a tightrope. How are you managing that?

Speaker 3: 31:43

So right now Big Orange Pantry on campus handles the majority of our meals and students and faculty and staff have to go in. They're allowed one meal at a time, so we're able to make sure that people aren't taking more than they really need. So that's how we're doing it currently is just kind of they go in, they see it, they're allowed one meal and that's it. The other locations we have on campus aren't managed. It's just refrigerators and microwaves and kind of a pantry that has chips and bars and all these other things that we get and are able to go, but there's no monitoring on those ones.

Speaker 1: 32:18

Now you are also a professor, correct?

Speaker 3: 32:21

I do teach here as well. Yes, talk about that. So we have a culinary institute here and I oversee the culinary institute and Food for Balls falls under this umbrella. Our culinaryinary Institute is a series of classes and faculty who do research and outreach that we do. Our academic classes are really designed to enhance certain degrees here on campus food science, nutrition, hospitality and tourism.

Speaker 3: 32:47

We try to teach these students in those majors what a real kitchen is like. Our kitchen is not set up like maybe some of the big culinary schools where everybody has their own stove and pot and pan. We're set up with one hotline. Everybody has to share the equipment, share some of the other stuff, just like you would in a regular restaurant. But we want these students to understand how to run a restaurant.

Speaker 3: 33:09

How does it work, what are the finances, what are all these things that go with it. They're not going to leave here being proficient and able to go out and be executive chefs, but they're going to go out and be better assistant managers and general managers and things like that, understanding what the back of house is, or they understand the terminology, the finances behind it, how to purchase, what these different new vendors are and how to negotiate with them. So we really spent a lot of time are and how to negotiate with them. So we really spent a lot of time kind of on the theory and how to run a kitchen versus spending all day in the laboratory.

Speaker 1: 33:42

So there's a marriage between operations and creativity, where you and your father are living. What is your passion then?

Speaker 3: 33:53

It's a little bit of everything. I really like teaching and showing these students how to be creative, and that kind of goes with the food for balls and what Andrew's doing. We're creating a new class. That's all I call it art. I have a class that we're creating where the students have to do what Andrew's doing. They're going to come in and we're going to learn. It might be casserole day and they have to go in the cooler and look at everything that we have available in there and be able to make a casserole out of what we have on hand. And there's like a stew day or there's a hand pie day or an international day that we're going to do. That's going to be really creative. So I really like coming up with kind of new ideas, new programs. I guess that's my passion is coming up with these new ways to make everything exciting.

Speaker 2: 34:38

I like the fact that the food scientists get into the kitchen and see how a kitchen runs instead of being like an accountant. No offense to them. Who are the pencil pushers that put these things out and say this is what we're going to run it now and it doesn't work.

Speaker 3: 34:50

Well, not even that the food scientists that come in because we have bush beans here in town. So a lot of the students go there and say, hey, we're going to make this bean and I'm like, well, what are we going to do with that bean? We try to show them. Before you make something, you should talk to the chefs and figure out what they're going to do with it before you just come out with it. So that's kind of something new.

Speaker 1: 35:05

That they haven't seen is how to utilize some of the products in the kitchen, versus just making something up I think an interesting point, also kind of in line with this, is so there is this, it's a you know the university of Tennessee, right, and? And then there's this charitable sort of component to it. And you're, you're, you're living, you're actually executing, you know you're teaching and delivering, you're doing both, and you're you know no-transcript actually get out into the trade like you and Andrew were doing. I think that's spectacular and should be applauded.

Speaker 3: 36:02

And they get to see us do that every day, like they see that we don't stop. We're here at seven in the morning, we leave at five. I don't have an educator's schedule, I have an industry schedule on what we do and the students see us moving all day, every day schedule and what we do, and the students see us moving all day, every day.

Speaker 2: 36:18

How do you feel about being an educator and hearing some chefs go well, those that can't, you know, take it, teach it.

Speaker 3: 36:22

You don't fall into that or is it those who, yeah, no, no, I mean I still do it. So we cater. Like I have football I said before I football coming this saturday. I have a catering for 600 people off site and it's going to be me, andrew and one work-study student that are doing it. I'm doing a wing festival this Sunday for up to 10,000 people. We just got finished making 80 gallons of sauce to be able to go to this thing. I teach for a small portion of my day and the rest of my day I'm still in the industry doing it all. So we still have to, and you have to, know more than what the students know and be able to do it better than them. So it's not that those in education can't hack it, it's there. They found a different way to express what they know, and not everybody can be a teacher, right? Not everybody can show somebody how to do what they do you are like the indiana jones of of food man you know what I mean.

Speaker 2: 37:14

Like I wanted to point, I wanted to point this out specifically because that's what you hear when, like someone like me who left the industry quote unquote, left the industry and went work for a broad liner. Well, you, you can't cook anymore, you couldn't take it. No, it had nothing to do with that.

Speaker 3: 37:28

We're just smarter. We learn we want to have to be in the kitchen on the weekends and nights and stuff like that. We're just smarter.

Speaker 2: 37:34

I don't know it's smarter because, I'll be honest with you, I think I worked a lot more hours when I worked for the broad liner. Wasn't physical hours, but it was definitely more hours than I did when I was working in the kitchen. Yeah, oh my God, yeah, and it's a misconception that well, well, I you teach?

Speaker 1: 38:03

huh, no, it's a lot more work. Well, just to be clear, anything that has to do with jeffrey schlissel is mental. I mean, let's, let's put it out there touche, yeah, touche, so all right. So then, tyler, what do you so for people who are, you know, have this passion to to cook, they have a passion maybe to to help out the community they have have this feel about this what do you recommend to somebody to get involved, either with you or something similar in another state? What would you say to that?

Speaker 3: 38:24

So for those who want to start something similar to this, I'm more than happy to share all of the bumps and bruises that we learned along the way to help them create something like this. It's very simple to replicate it. There's also probably programs like this already existing in their community. Right, meals on Wheels is very similar to what we're doing. I'm unique in that I'm capturing all the food in one area. Right, we're using the university as that geographical area. But there's other things that they could do. They could set this up where they're collecting food and taking it to food pantries that exist in their area. Second Harvest, like I said, for us in East Tennessee, is the one who's helping us with some of the logistics a little bit. I need extra food. They help us with it. The partnerships are what make this work. You can't do it by yourself. I rely heavily on Second Harvest. They rely on me to help them. We are all partners in how we do this, so you can't have too many partners with it.

Speaker 2: 39:21

How do you get your funding, man? I mean, you got to do stuff right.

Speaker 3: 39:26

Correct. We have to buy every one of those microwavable containers, we have to buy our vehicles, pay for the gas and all that. So we've been very blessed that we're actually very good at fundraising and we are self-funded. We average every year probably in the $30,000 to $50,000 that we need to operate Food for Balls, and as we produce more meals we have to do some more fundraising, but we've been very good at it thus far. Because of Andrew and I's background we're able to do catering to raise money, festivals and things like that. So we're out there slinging it just like we were in a kitchen trying to make money to support the program.

Speaker 1: 40:03

Well, if somebody wanted to support what you're doing Food for Vols. How do they do that?

Speaker 3: 40:08

So we do have a website. It's through the university. You can just search for Food for Vols University of Tennessee it should take you there and there's a page where they can do tax-deductible donations. We're able to give credit for gifts in kind and things like that. We're working with a company now hopefully trying to get them some vehicle help and things like that, so we're able to help make sure that it's tax-deductible and that they're getting the credit that that they deserve for helping us out.

Speaker 1: 40:36

Well, I'll make sure to to add that into the description of the podcast, this episode. You know, if anyone listening would want to participate, that would be terrific.

Speaker 3: 40:47

Yeah, we'd be super happy to to have some partners come on and help us. That's a little bit less work we have to do going out on the weekends doing catering trying to support them all.

Speaker 1: 40:59

Are you taking vacations?

Speaker 3: 41:01

Like what's up with you? Are you getting time off or what? I went to Key West for a couple of days over the summer. That's probably the only vacation I'll have this year. I think it's three days, all right.

Speaker 1: 41:07

So the next time you're going to go to Key West or somewhere in Florida, you got to pass through the studio.

Speaker 3: 41:20

We got to pass through the studio, we got to set it up. Okay, I want to make sure that I'm clear.

Speaker 1: 41:21

I have a good friend that lives in hudson florida, just north of y'all, so should be easy to get there. Yeah, no, hudson's not far. It's maybe an hour and a half, something like that.

Speaker 3: 41:25

Maybe a deuce I gotta fly into saint saint pete anyway. Right, allegiant knoxville has a direct flight straight down to saint pete oh, saint p Pete's like an hour from here.

Speaker 1: 41:34

Yeah, no, no, that would be awesome. Yeah, man, cause then there's always things to talk about off air, you know, and uh, and there's a lot. I can just tell you that there's a lot. We kind of, we kind of, you know, poked at a few different things the other day on our call. But yeah, man, I'd love to uh to meet you in person.

Speaker 3: 41:52

Yeah, no, usually it's easier when the semester is done. So we're looking December, january and then I got all summer coming.

Speaker 2: 41:58

I will tell you this you said you were from. You went to what school? For college?

Speaker 3: 42:03

I went. I went to Western Carolina university.

Speaker 2: 42:07

North.

Speaker 3: 42:07

Carolina for bachelors.

Speaker 2: 42:09

We're in Cullowhee, North Carolina, which is near Dillsboro right, which is near Dillsboro right and Boone.

Speaker 3: 42:13

It is near Dillsboro.

Speaker 2: 42:14

Yes, so I only know one other person in the United States that went there and it's my best friend, and he took me there to Paradise Falls. Let me just tell you, if anybody wants to go see a beautiful campus, and especially that surrounding area, dillsboro and Boone Farm Boone, rather, is just fantastic.

Speaker 3: 42:35

It's a beautiful country up there. Yeah, no, that whole area of western North Carolina is very picturesque. They play tonight, too, football. They're going to get creamed, but they play tonight.

Speaker 2: 42:44

They were never very good I wonder why how many people go to that school.

Speaker 3: 42:52

I honestly think it was 8,000 or 9,000 when I was there and UT's at like thirty six thousand.

Speaker 1: 42:57

Oh, my goodness. Well, I'll tell you what We'll keep an eye out for the, for the score. It's going to be an ass kicking.

Speaker 1: 43:04

Tyler, I appreciate you being on the show. We appreciate you being here. Just want to give a sincere thanks to Metro Storage and Distribution for kind of connecting us. I can't wait to see the video and I can't wait to see our video, because we have our own coverage of this thing. It's going to be bad ass again. Tyler, thanks for being on the program. Thank you all for having me. Excellent, john. Jeffrey man Screw you guys. No, we, we are out. Jeffrey man screw you guys. No, we, we are out. We'll see you next time.