In 2018, in the glittering heart of Las Vegas, an unlikely revolution in food waste began. MGM Grand Resorts, one of the Strip’s largest resort operators, faced a persistent challenge: how to handle the massive quantities of high-quality prepared food left over from their convention operations. While many would see only a disposal problem, MGM’s sustainability team saw an opportunity to address both food insecurity and climate change.
The innovation seemed simple: use blast chiller technology – typically employed in food manufacturing – to rapidly cool prepared foods to safe temperatures for transport and storage. But this straightforward technical solution catalyzed something far more significant: a complete reimagining of how large-scale food rescue could work.
Partnering with ThreeSquare Food Bank, MGM launched a pilot program that would ultimately rescue over 5 million meals worth of high-quality prepared food. The numbers were staggering – not just in meals saved, but in methane emissions prevented, landfill space reclaimed, and community needs met. It was precisely the kind of transformative change that policy experts and climate advocates call for in reports like the recent IPBES assessment on biodiversity and food systems.
Then came COVID-19, and with it, an unexpected revelation about our food system’s capacity for change.
As operations resumed post-pandemic, ThreeSquare made a decision that would shock many: they opted to discontinue their involvement with the program. Despite its proven success, despite the ongoing need, despite the environmental benefits – the food bank chose to retreat to their traditional operating model. Their reasoning? Prepared food rescue, despite its demonstrated impact, wasn’t part of their core mission.
This moment crystallizes a critical challenge in food system transformation that high-level policy recommendations consistently miss: the very institutions we rely on to implement change can become barriers to innovation when solutions don’t fit their established operational frameworks.
Yet the story doesn’t end there. In a twist that challenges conventional wisdom about institutional change, MGM Grand Resorts chose to internalize and expand the blast chiller program as a corporate waste reduction strategy. What began as a charitable partnership evolved into a business-driven solution that other corporations could replicate.
The Policy-Implementation Disconnect
As global organizations like IPBES release new frameworks for transformative change, the MGM Grand Resorts story takes on particular significance. It offers not just a case study in innovation, but a window into the fundamental disconnect between high-level policy recommendations and ground-level implementation realities, especially in an era of increasing political instability that threatens traditional support structures.
The IPBES report, like many high-level policy frameworks, calls for transformative change in our food systems to address biodiversity loss and climate change. While the report correctly identifies the urgent need for systematic transformation, it reveals critical blind spots in how such changes can actually be implemented. This disconnect becomes particularly stark when we examine the report’s emphasis on “whole-of-society” approaches to transformation.
Consider the report’s strategy for “driving systemic change in sectors most responsible for biodiversity loss.” The MGM initiative perfectly aligned with this goal, yet traditional implementation pathways proved inadequate. Similarly, while the report emphasizes “transforming economic systems for nature and equity,” the MGM case demonstrates that market-driven solutions can sometimes achieve transformative outcomes more effectively than traditional charitable or regulatory approaches.
The Implementation Reality
In an era where fundamental environmental protections and social safety nets face mounting political threats – from potential dismantling of the EPA to attacks on SNAP benefits – the MGM case becomes even more significant. It demonstrates how effective solutions must be designed to succeed independently of government support and despite institutional resistance to change.
This reality demands a fundamental reconsideration of how we approach food system transformation. Rather than focusing exclusively on what changes are needed, policy frameworks must grapple with the limitations of our existing implementation infrastructure and the increasing volatility of traditional support systems. This means developing new models that can thrive regardless of political headwinds.
Rethinking Implementation Pathways
What makes the MGM Grand story particularly instructive is its unexpected resolution. When the traditional nonprofit pathway closed, rather than abandoning a proven solution, MGM Grand internalized and improved it. This pivot from charitable partnership to business strategy reveals an alternative pathway for scaling transformative change: through market mechanisms and business innovation rather than traditional charitable channels.
This outcome challenges conventional wisdom about how transformative change occurs. While policy frameworks typically position the private sector as a target for regulation and the nonprofit sector as an implementation partner, the MGM case suggests we may need to invert this thinking. When properly aligned with business objectives, private sector actors may be better positioned to scale innovative solutions than institutions bound by traditional operating models and funding constraints.
Action Steps for Transformative Change
For Global Policy Organizations: Immediately integrate implementation capacity assessment into policy frameworks. This means evaluating not just what needs to change, but critically assessing who can effectively implement that change and how. Policy recommendations must acknowledge that traditional implementation pathways through government agencies and state-funded NGOs can no longer be assumed reliable.
For Implementation Organizations: Begin pilot programs testing new operational models that reduce dependency on traditional funding streams and government support. Organizations should explore hybrid approaches that combine earned revenue with philanthropic support, following successful examples like MGM Grand’s internalized food rescue program.
For Business-Philanthropic Leaders: Prioritize investment in market-driven solutions that can operate independently of government support. Focus particularly on initiatives that embed environmental and social impact within core business operations, making them resilient to political shifts and policy changes.
For Policy Makers: Develop regulatory frameworks that enable rather than prescribe specific solutions. Create space for market-driven innovation while ensuring basic environmental and social safeguards remain in place, recognizing that over-reliance on regulatory bodies may create vulnerability in times of political transition.
Conclusion
The transformation our food systems require cannot wait for perfect political conditions or institutional readiness. As the MGM Grand Resorts case demonstrates, effective solutions often emerge from unexpected directions and succeed through unconventional pathways. In an era where traditional support structures face increasing uncertainty – from the potential dismantling of the EPA to threats against fundamental food security programs like SNAP – we must build implementation pathways that can thrive independently of government support.
The future of food system transformation lies not in hoping institutions will change, but in creating new models that can succeed despite institutional resistance. These models must be self-sustaining, market-aligned where possible, and resilient to political shifts. Just as MGM Grand Resorts transformed a charitable food rescue program into a sustainable business practice, we must reimagine how transformative change occurs across our food system.
The path forward requires courage – not just in identifying what must change, but in fundamentally reimagining how that change occurs. The time for relying solely on traditional implementation pathways has passed. Reports like IPBES provide valuable frameworks for what needs to change, but the MGM Grand Resorts case reminds us that true transformation often happens when we find new ways to implement proven solutions, even if they challenge conventional wisdom about how change should occur.
The future belongs to those who can build new models that work regardless of political headwinds, who can transform institutional barriers into market opportunities, and who understand that sometimes the most effective path to change isn’t the one outlined in policy frameworks. As we confront the urgent challenges of climate change and food system sustainability, this lesson becomes more crucial than ever.
