Meetings Today 在 IMEX America 2026 采访凯撒娱乐餐饮负责人，解析会议活动如何减少食物浪费

Reducing food waste at meetings and events starts well before dinner is served.

On the tradeshow floor at IMEX America 2026, Meetings Today’s Taylor Smith spoke with Michele Polci, director of catering for Caesars Entertainment, about how F&B teams forecast attendance, plan menus and adjust production to meet demand.

Polci also explains how Caesars evaluates eligible surplus for donation, prioritizes food safety and works with recovery partners to ensure food stays out of landfills and instead is given to the community.  

Read on to learn more, plus what Caesars does to help meeting planners better understand their events’ food-recovery efforts.

Taylor Smith: How does Caesars work to prevent food waste at large-scale events? What steps do catering teams take when planning menus, quantities and service?

Michele Polci: Well, prevention starts long before an event begins. Our catering and culinary teams work closely with meeting planners to forecast attendance, review historical consumption patterns and build menus that align with guest preferences and event schedules.

But it goes beyond that. We use detailed banquet event orders that have all the F&B requests, all of the dietary restrictions. It allows us to figure out registration trends and real-time attendance updates to help right-size food production and reduce over-ordering.

Our chefs take a flexible production approach, preparing certain menu components in stages whenever possible. This allows us to adjust based on actual attendance rather than preparing all food at once.

We also design menus strategically, considering portion sizes, service styles and ingredients that can be utilized across multiple functions while maintaining a high-quality guest experience.

Ultimately, our goal is to maximize guest satisfaction while minimizing waste through thoughtful planning and operational efficiency.

What happens to food that remains after an event? Does Caesars work with local food banks or other community organizations to donate suitable surplus?

Not all food can be donated, but when products meet food-safety requirements and remain suitable for consumption, our teams prioritize donation and recovery. We seek opportunities to redirect eligible surplus food away from landfills and into the community.

We work with established local nonprofit and food recovery organizations that can safely collect and distribute food to individuals and families in need.

These efforts support our broader sustainability and corporate social responsibility (CSR) goals while helping address food insecurity in the communities where we operate.

[Related: From Vegas and Now Beyond: Lip Smacking Foodie Tours Offers a Moveable Feast for Groups]

If food is donated, how does the process work—including decisions about what can be donated, safe handling and how quickly it can be transferred?

Food safety is always the top priority. Our culinary teams evaluate surplus food based on strict food handling guidelines and donation requirements. Only food that has been properly stored, maintained within required temperature ranges and remains safe for consumption is considered for donation.

Once food is identified as donation-eligible, it is packaged, labeled and handled according to established food-safety procedures. We coordinate with our nonprofit recovery partners to facilitate timely pickup and distribution so food reaches recipients as quickly and safely as possible.

Every step of the process is designed to meet both operational standards and regulatory requirements.

Do convention catering teams use blast chillers or other equipment to cool and preserve eligible surplus food for donation? If so, how does that fit into the process?

Caesars utilizes professional culinary equipment and food-preservation practices that support safe food handling throughout the event lifecycle.

Blast chilling and rapid-cooling technologies can play an important role in preserving food quality and maintaining safe temperatures when food is identified as suitable for future use or donation. These systems help culinary teams cool food quickly within required food safety parameters, reducing the risk of spoilage.

The use of this equipment is integrated into broader food safety and recovery protocols that guide how surplus food is evaluated, stored and prepared for donation partners when appropriate.

This approach helps us balance responsible resource management with our commitment to guest and community safety.

[Related: Tasty Morsels on a Roll: Food Trucks for Event F&B]

How do you track food waste and assess whether prevention or donation efforts are working? Are there lessons or measures you can share?

Measurement is a critical component of any waste-reduction strategy. We continuously evaluate operational data, event outcomes and food-production patterns to identify opportunities for improvement.

Our teams analyze factors such as attendance accuracy, menu performance, production levels and post-event surplus to refine forecasting for future events. We also monitor participation in food recovery and diversion programs to better understand the impact of our sustainability efforts.

One key lesson is that collaboration between catering teams, chefs, event managers and planners significantly improves forecasting accuracy and reduces unnecessary waste. The more information we have regarding attendee counts, schedules and guest preferences, the more effectively we can align production with actual demand.

How are your efforts to repurpose food documented, measured and then presented to meeting planners so that they have data for their executives on CSR and community giveback?

Today's meeting planners are increasingly looking for measurable sustainability outcomes, and we recognize the importance of providing meaningful data.

Through our sustainability and food recovery initiatives, Caesars works to track relevant metrics related to waste diversion, food donation and community impact where available. We partner closely with our clients to identify sustainability priorities and connect them with available reporting and impact information.

These insights can help planners demonstrate how their event contributed to broader environmental and social responsibility goals. By providing transparency around these efforts, we help planners tell a more complete story about the positive community and environmental impact of their meetings and events.

Our goal is to make sustainability not only an operational priority, but also a tangible value that meeting planners can share with stakeholders and executive leadership.

Connection 

Caesars Entertainment Meetings & Events 

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About the author

Taylor Smith serves as content manager, destinations for Meetings Today, where she leads coverage of global meetings destinations as well as the production of the biannual online magazine Incentives Today. She is also author of “The Z: Planning for the Industry’s Next Generation,” an award-winning column examining how Gen Z is influencing the future of meetings, events and workplace culture.

Recognized as one of Eventex’s 100 Most Influential People in the Events Industry (2024) and 50 Most Influential People in the U.S. & Canada (2025), Smith has quickly established herself as a leading voice on emerging generational shifts. In 2026, The Z earned a national Azbee Award from the American Society of Business Publication Editors and was recognized as one of the best regular print departments in B2B journalism across the country.

In addition to her editorial work for the FOLIO: Eddies Award-winning magazine, Smith is co-host of Meetings Today’s Eventualists podcast, shedding light on the unspoken realities of a career in the events industry through authentic, raw conversations. She is also a frequent speaker, taking the stage at shows including IMEX America, MPI’s World Education Congress and SITE Global, and often appears on prominent industry podcasts and webinars.

Based just outside Chicago, Smith brings both professional insight and personal curiosity to her reporting, driven by a passion for the “people-people” nature of the meetings industry.