Got 30 pounds of unused fresh spinach? Musically Fed nonprofit works with Lollapalooza to reduce food waste

While festivalgoers swarmed Grant Park over four days at Lollapalooza and artists graced the stages, caterers behind the scenes set up their extensive lineup of gourmet VIP meals to feed the performers and their crews each day. 

But a lot of that food goes to waste, said Maria Brunner, founder of Musically Fed, a national nonprofit that partners with the music industry to fight food insecurity. 

“Right now, as we speak, 20 hotel pans are being taken to Centro Romero — there’s some chicken and some sides,” Brunner said last week. “And the interesting thing about outlets like this is they’ll double it. They’ll use magic to turn it into a lot of food.” 

During Lollapalooza, Musically Fed and its volunteer team were on-site each day to collect, organize and distribute unused food to organizations supporting unhoused individuals, veterans, women in crisis and low-income families — including Centro Romero, Deborah’s Place, Pacific Garden Mission, Care For Real and Lincoln Park Community Services. 

On Friday, Deborah’s Place — a shelter that houses women experiencing homelessness in Chicago — received 15 to 20 trays of food that helped feed 64 residents for dinner that day, and lunch the next.

Ravinia Williams, who runs the women’s shelter, said the donations also helped the residents of the apartment side, which includes those without income or SNAP benefits.

“Receiving such a huge donation helps feed those who are without the necessary resources and funding to actually purchase their own food,” Williams said. “It’s very, very helpful.” 

Deborah’s Place houses a young woman who is vegan, Williams noted, and one of the trays Musically Fed donated was a plant-based dish. 

“She’s been having a hard time. I was so glad that we were able to provide such a meal for her — if it wasn’t for Musically Fed, she said she might not have had a meal tonight.” 

Brunner created the Phoenix-based organization to help veterans experiencing homelessness, hunger and food insecurity in honor of her husband, who served in the Vietnam War. Brunner, a music industry veteran of more than 30 years, wanted to push the notion that the live music community can be a force for good.

“I decided to see if I could put together a viable program that would repurpose unused backstage catering from concerts and festivals,” she explained. After the Zac Brown Band and Fleetwood Mac invited Brunner and her budding team in 2016 on their national tours to feed homeless people throughout America — something clicked. 

“We thought: Hey, we could really do this,” Brenner said. Over time, they learned how to implement the mission in cities across the country. 

Brunner said they’ve recently coordinated all aspects of food handling, transport and donation distribution for unused food from Billie Eilish concerts, Coldplay concerts and the Grammy Awards. In the Chicago area, Musically Fed partners year-round with several venues, including Huntington Bank Pavilion at Northerly Island and Credit Union 1 Amphitheatre in Tinley Park. 

Weeks before Lollapolooza even begins, Musically Fed’s staff gets to work behind the scenes starting in mid-July to coordinate early crew meal pickups. 

Volunteers work with Lollapalooza’s catering company, Black Caviar, to assess what’s available and develop logistical plans with local nonprofit partners. Brunner said they were able to repurpose lunch for 10 days leading up to opening day. On the Saturday before the festival, the Franciscan Center received seven pans of food totaling 100 meals. Brunner said thousands of meals were delivered to the doorsteps of Musically Fed’s local nonprofit partners throughout the week. 

“I look at it as a zero-sum game. It’s food that should be consumed somewhere,” said Larry Nutter, a Chicago-based volunteer and board president of Musically Fed. “If we don’t have that much left over that meal, that’s great, then (the caterer) is doing their job. But if they have too much, then we take it and make sure it gets eaten. No food is wasted.” 

Nutter was onsite coordinating the food distribution system from unused backstage catering and guiding the volunteer staff as they delivered food to organizations such as Centro Romero, which serves the immigrant and refugee communities on the Northeast side of Chicago. 

The rotating menu featured items like roasted vegetables, pulled pork, roasted chicken, dirty rice salad and taco fixings. 

“You’re feeding all these people, but it’s really good food,” Nutter said. “They always have healthy options like salad bars, too. People eat pretty well.” 

During Lollapolooza, Musically Fed only collected unused food from the two kitchens that serve artists, crews and festival organizers, as well as VIP food tents. On the Monday after, however, Musically Fed procured items from concessions. 

“People will give us what they don’t want, so we get a lot of different things from the concessions — we might get 100 pounds of hamburgers or frozen Wow Bao Buns — we’ve gotten 35 gallons of Italian ice before,” Nutter said. 

Some vendors will give volunteers unsold items at the end of the day, provided they are temperature-safe to consume, but most wait until the festival concludes, according to Nutter.

“Chicago is a great city for us. Every time we do Lollapolooza, we learn more. This is a big deal for us — people might think we just kind of pull it from the sky and we’re good. We cover all the overhead liability training but we can always use donations to keep it going,” she said. 

Brunner said Musically Fed has donated almost 30,000 meals to Chicago-area nonprofits over the last four years from Lollapolooza. And since the organization started six years ago, Musically Fed has donated a total of over 700,000 meals to people across the country through various music festivals and concerts. 

“Now here comes the real interesting dilemma: if you let people know that’s how much we donated, there are people that will go, ‘Well, why did you buy so much?’” Brunner said. “But when you’ve got cruise bands and artists, you want to feed the crew and you want to make sure you have enough. But I think it’s great that they are giving it to us because this is why we exist.” 

Musically Fed first taps their local nonprofit partners for donation drops — which includes extensive planning on both ends — before reaching out to “any and everyone” who might find what they don’t use helpful. 

At last year’s Lollapolooza, Brunner said she was trying hard to get in touch with someone at the Shedd Aquarium because volunteers had procured 32 pounds of unused fresh spinach: “We didn’t have anyone who wanted it, but the animals could eat it!”