A Community Feast

Marx Layne & Company’s hospitality team recently orchestrated a highly-successful media relations and social media campaign in support of the second annual Make Food Not Waste—A Community Feast. The community-led, FREE event was held on September 8, 2019 at Eastern Market in Detroit and was organized by an all-volunteer team who believes in reducing food waste one person at a time.

It featured dishes made by some of the greatest local chefs from high-quality food that would otherwise go to waste. The event included a culinary competition between local students judged by nationally renowned chefs and an array of expert presenters who gave people easy, effective, everyday ways to reduce the amount of food wasted at home.

Event attendees also had the opportunity to visit five themed areas, each focusing on a different aspect of reducing food waste: Eat, Share, Recycle, Grow and Act. In each area, there were many businesses, organizations and individuals from across southeast Michigan that shared information and resources to help address wasted food, an issue with wide-spread economic, environmental, health and social impact.

As a result of the Marx Layne media relations and social media campaign, Make Food Not Waste—A Community Feast more than doubled the number of attendees from the prior year and served approximately 5,000 meals over a span of six hours. The media relations campaign focused on engaging print (daily and community), broadcast (radio and TV), and online and social influencers to help build awareness about the event and its mission while driving attendees.

News coverage included in-studio cooking segments on both FOX 2 and WXYZ TV 7, radio interviews on FM and AM public affairs and news radio channels, and pre- and post-event coverage in print publications such as The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press.