What Does Pizza Hut Do With Leftover Food?

When you finish eating at a restaurant, you box up those leftovers, take them home, and save them for another day — but when a restaurant has leftover food in the kitchen, where does it go? To the staff? Back onto the grill? To the landfill? While we certainly can't speak for every eatery or restaurant chain out there, we can tell you that Pizza Hut donates its leftover food through the Harvest Program to those in need.

Back in 1992, Pizza Hut was the first organization to partner with Food Donation Connection (FDC) and the Harvest Program, which has aided over 2,500 charitable organizations across the country. The brand had a direct hand in helping create the program from the ground up alongside FDC founder (and former Pizza Hut executive) Bill Reighard, who hoped to devise a solution for reducing food waste and feeding local communities. Harvest, which is also redistributes Papa Johns' leftover food, connects restaurants with local networks that help deliver safe food products to rescue groups that feed the communities nationwide.

In 2017, Pizza Hut surpassed 100 million pounds of food donated through the Harvest Program, according to an official press release. These donations alone were enough to feed 100 million people. "Pizza Hut is a global brand whose people are very mindful of their communities," noted Rev. Bob Sweeney, whose organization Dallas LIFE takes part in the Harvest Program. Since then, the pizza chain has continued to partner with the FDC and donate more leftover food through the Harvest Program, inspiring others to do the same.

It's not as if Pizza Hut is scrounging up half-eaten pizza leftovers from customers to donate to the Harvest Program. The company instead donates the pies and breadsticks that were never picked up (including the best pizza on Pizza Hut's entire menu) or meals deemed "error pizza," as well as any additional surplus. The chain rounds up the leftover pasta, wings, desserts, and other buffet items that aren't taken by customers but are still perfectly fine to eat.

After this, Pizza Hut employees seal and freeze the food while the Harvest Program works with local organizations within a 10-mile radius of the restaurant to arrange a weekly pickup. From there, the partner organizations decide how to distribute the leftovers to families who need them.

Pizza Hut isn't the only subsidiary under the Yum! Brands umbrella to donates to the Harvest Program. The Habit Burger Grill, Taco Bell, and KFC also donate leftover food to Harvest, among a portfolio spanning thousands of restaurants across the globe. According to the Yum! website, the parent company's collective donation to the Harvest Program equates to over 200 million pounds of food in total.