What Happens To The Leftover Food At The Iowa State Fair?

There are arguably too many food options when you attend the Iowa State Fair. From the food on a stick, all things fried, to buckets filled to the brim, it’s hard to know where to start. Now that the fair is over, you are going to have to wait until next year to get your hands on another bucket of cookies.

Get our free mobile app

While we patiently wait until next year’s fair, the leftover food can’t really wait until the next fair. So, what do vendors do with the food?

Some vendors, donate it to the Food Bank of Iowa.

According to the Food Bank of Iowa’s website, twelve food vendors at the fair have teamed up to donate their leftovers to the food bank. Together the vendors were able to donate 7,300 pounds of unused food.

This donation included 3,150 pounds of pork shank from Campbell's Concessions, fresh produce, 136 cases of Thin Mint Cookies from the Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa, and 40 tubs of ice cream from Midwest Dairy.

This isn’t the first-year vendors that have donated to the Food Bank of Iowa.  The first-year vendors got together to make the donation was 2018 says an article in the Des Moines Register.

Back then the fair vendors donated 5,500 pounds of food to the food bank and the food bank was hoping the donation could become a new tradition.

This year’s food donations came from the following groups:

• Campbell’s Concessions
• Cattlemen’s Beef Quarters
• Depot
• Girl Scouts of Greater Iowa
• Iowa Pork Producers Association
• Iowa Sheep Industry Association
• Jalapeno Pete’s
• Midwest Dairy Association
• Stockman’s Inn
• TnT Concessions
• Veggie Table
• West Des Moines United Methodist Church