Food is the biggest share of what most events throw away, and it's the easiest to bring full circle. Here's how Orlando caterers can feed people first, compost the rest, and recycle what's left.
Every banquet ends the same way. The plates come back to the kitchen, and what's left on them, along with the trim from prep and the trays that never went out, heads for the dumpster. In a landfill, food doesn't turn into soil. It rots without air and gives off methane, a greenhouse gas far more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term.
It doesn't have to end there. In Orlando we have a local partner that closes the loop, and we use them every week.
At Florida Fresh, every stem, leaf and branch that comes back from an event goes into bins at our shop, and O-Town Compost picks them up twice a week. By our count that's about 30,000 pounds a year kept out of the landfill. See the case study.
O-Town Compost is an Orlando company, founded in 2020 by Charlie Pioli, who spent years as a solid waste and recycling consultant before deciding Central Florida needed a better answer for food scraps. It serves homes, offices, businesses, multi-family properties and events, and offers zero-waste event service. It has grown well beyond Orlando, expanding in 2025 to the Tampa Bay region. According to 4Roots Farm, its partner, O-Town has helped divert 7.2 million pounds of waste in Central Florida.
What makes it work for caterers: O-Town accepts the food scraps most programs won't, including meat, dairy and paper towels. Its composting sites, including one in Winter Garden and another on the 4Roots Farm campus, turn those scraps into finished compost.
Here's how food from an Orlando event comes back around:
And the circle starts again.
The partnership is the heart of it. O-Town works closely with 4Roots, the Orlando nonprofit founded by John Rivers that runs a farm campus and a food pantry program. O-Town customers can choose to donate their finished compost to 4Roots Farm. So the scraps from a Central Florida banquet can help build the soil that grows Central Florida food.
Contamination is the biggest problem. O-Town's founder has said most of the contamination they see comes from restaurants, and latex food-prep gloves are one of the worst offenders. A clean stream is what keeps a compost program running, so train your kitchen and banquet staff before the first event, and put clear signs on every bin.
Composting is recycling for food. But a catering operation also produces cardboard, glass, cans and plastic, and those need their own stream. At events, the best setup is a station of three bins grouped together and clearly labeled: Compost, Recycling and Landfill.
Compost is the right ending for scraps, but it's not the right ending for good food. Before anything goes in the bin, safe, unserved food should go to people who need it. Plan for it: talk to a local food recovery partner before the event, keep unserved food at safe temperatures, and package it for pickup. Federal law, the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act, protects businesses that donate food in good faith. Ask your attorney or the food recovery partner how it applies to you.
Ask your hauler for the weight of every pickup. After a few events you'll have a real number: "Our events diverted 4,000 pounds of food from the landfill this quarter." That's a claim you can put in a proposal, and it's one clients remember. Measure and mitigate, then publish what you did.
And tell guests what happened to their dinner. The best line I know is one I use for flowers: your event becomes living soil. It works for food, too.
Sources: 4Roots Farm (O-Town Compost program); ClickOrlando / WKMG (2021); BioBag interview with Charlie Pioli; St. Pete Catalyst (July 2025); Valencia College (2021). Figures as reported by those sources.
Baby steps, starting with what you already do.
SUSTAINABLE EVENTS. CHOICES THAT MATTER.