Mobile Meals Turns Game-Day Leftovers Into Meals

Chef Maclean Bell collects food left over from University of Tennessee home games and turns it into meals for Knoxville families.

Updated on Nov. 9, 2026 in Food and Drink

Mobile Meals Turns Game-Day Leftovers Into Meals

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Mobile Meals is using leftover food from University of Tennessee home games to make community meals in Knoxville. The effort made 7,000 meals from Neyland leftovers last year and is on track to do so again this year.

Why it matters

Without the program, the food would otherwise go into the landfill. For Knoxville, it adds meals for children and families at a time when demand for food assistance is high.

Mobile Meals reports 7,000 meals made from leftovers last year and is on track to match that total this year. The leftover food adds three or four hundred meals a day to the kitchen's daily output of 4,000 meals, and the team has about 36 hours to use it before it must be frozen.

The players

Mobile Meals

A Knoxville-area meal program that turns surplus and leftover food into prepared meals for children and families in the community.

University of Tennessee

The public university whose home-game leftovers supply the food and which asked last year for help keeping unsold food out of the landfill.

The details

After each home game, Chef Maclean Bell collects leftover food at the FISH Pantry loading dock, working with FISH Pantry, KARM and CAC. Bell sorts the food and decides what to keep before the Mobile Meals team turns it into meals for kids and families, including after-school programs and warming centers.

Last year: the University of Tennessee asked for help keeping unsold food out of the landfill.
This past winter: warming centers were ready, easing demand for meal-feeding.
This year: Mobile Meals is on track to make 7,000 meals from leftovers again.

Local Context

The University of Tennessee's request last year for help keeping unsold food out of the landfill set the stage for Mobile Meals' second year of collecting game-day leftovers. The program now runs as a repeatable arrangement tied to Neyland Stadium home games.

Residents who want to support the effort can look for Mobile Meals' game-day collections and community meal distributions. Families reached by after-school programs and warming centers receive the prepared meals directly.

The takeaway

Redirecting surplus food from campus events to community kitchens keeps usable meals out of the landfill and puts them on local tables. Other organizers can look at the Mobile Meals model of a loading-dock handoff and a fast freeze-or-serve window.