NEW SMYRNA BEACH, Fla. — You’ve heard of farm to table, but what about table to farm? In Volusia County, the Scrap the Waste Corporation is reducing food waste while feeding local farm animals. 

What You Need To Know

  • The Scrap the Waste Corporation collects food scraps from restaurants and grocery stores and uses them to help feed local farm animals across Volusia County

  • The program increases nutrition for animals, reduces feed bills for local farms and cuts down on food waste

  • Volunteers deliver up to 20,000 pounds of food to farms every week 

  • The organization is looking for more Volusia County restaurants to join the program so they can deliver to even more farms

The Scrap the Waste Corporation works by collecting fruit and vegetable scraps, that would have otherwise been thrown away, from local restaurants and grocery stores. Then, the scraps are used to feed farm animals across Volusia County. The program increases nutrition for animals, reduces feed bills for local farms and cuts down on food waste. 

It all started when New Smyrna Beach resident Savannah Kater got an idea while working at Norwood's Restaurant & Treehouse Bar. When Kater first started working there, she helped prepare fruits for the restaurant’s fresh juice program. It was here she saw an opportunity. 

“I just noticed that every day that I was juicing, I was bringing boxes of rinds to the dumpster,” Kater said. “We were trying to figure out what to do with it.” 

Norwoods already has a green initiative in place, where they use as much of the fruit as possible, but didn’t know what to do with the rinds. After visiting an open farm day at Parsley Lane Farm, Kater had the idea to feed the rinds to the animals there. It started with one bucket of rinds and quickly grew from there. 

“All the salad people and prep people started collecting all these veggies for us,” Kater said. “This is all stuff that normally, because it's discolored, wouldn't be used.”

Soon buckets of food waste turned into trailer loads. It led Kater, Christine Bourne of Parsley Lane Farm and Rebecca Zerrusen, the general manager of Norwoods, to officially form the Scrap the Waste Corporation. Don and Pamela Simmons, the local owners of Norwoods, also bought the organization a trailer to help haul even more food.

“As soon as we had the trailer, we were able to start saying yes to more restaurants and businesses,” Kater said.                                                                                                                       

Now, Kater and Scrap the Waste volunteers collect food from about a dozen restaurants and grocery stores across Volusia County. They deliver the scraps six days a week and regularly help 20 local farms, all the way from Seville to Edgewater. “A lot of these farmers are actually sanctuaries where they take in animals, and they're doing it all on their own costs and own time,” Kater said. “It makes me happy to just, like, make a little dent in that for them.”

The deliveries are made by Kater, her mom and daughter, and Scrap the Waste volunteers Shanna Karcher and Sabrina Sloan. They deliver up to 20,000 pounds of food to farms every week — an act that helps local farmers reduce their feed bills. 

“The farmers get to cut down on their feed bill because they can supplement some of these scraps for their feed,” Kater said.

She estimates that a trailer-load of fruits and vegetables would be about $1,000 for farmers to purchase on their own. Parsley Lane Farm founder Christine Bourne said not only do the scraps save money, they also increase nutrition for animals.

“I get four days a week where the animals are basically getting a fresh salad bar delivered to them,” Bourne said.

Bourne said after about six months, there was a noticeable difference in the coats of her animals. She said she’s never seen her animals so healthy. 

“The coats on our animals — they look like show animals that have been bathed and polished,” Bourne said. “It's nothing but whole fresh food.”

Kater said not only do local farm animals benefit, but the environment does, too.

“The animals get extra hydration and nutrition through things that would just normally be going in the landfill,” Kater said. “Also, all of this is kept out of the local landfills.”

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, 66 million tons of food waste was generated in the United States in 2019. About 60% went into landfills, while less than 3% was used for animal feed. Kater said she hopes Scrap the Waste can make a big difference in reducing local food waste.

“We went from one bucket of scraps to trailer loads in less than a year,” she said. “If we keep continuing at that rate, we can help a lot of people and keep a lot of scraps out of the landfill.”

From increased nutrition for animals, to reduced feed bills for farmers, Kater said it brings her joy to help local farms.

“I just love being able to help people,” Kater said. “It keeps me going every week. It's what I wake up and do every week and it's my motivation for everyday.” Kater said that as Scrap the Waste grows, the organization is looking for more restaurants in Volusia County to join the program. To learn more about the organization or to get involved, visit their Facebook page.