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https://reasonstobecheerful.world/food-forward-fresh-produce-distribution/>
"The day at the “Pit Stop” warehouse in Bell, California, starts at 4 a.m.
Forklifts move pallets of tomatoes, broccoli and bell peppers into trucks.
Boxes of grapes and bananas wait to be loaded while trucks arrive with an
abundance of zucchinis and nectarines. The 10,000-square-foot warehouse looks
like organized chaos: A dozen employees move an average of 265,000 pounds or
132 tons here every day. “Share the Abundance” is written in bright blue
letters across a yellow wall. The best part: All this healthy abundance is
free. The nonprofit Food Forward receives the fruits and vegetables at no cost
from wholesalers and donates them to those in need in 13 counties.
“Because we focus 100 percent on perishable fresh fruit and vegetables, speed
is of the essence,” says Jen Cox, Food Forward’s chief development officer.
“Hardly any produce stays here for more than 24 hours. The logistics are
insane.”
In the US, more than 35 percent of the food produced (roughly 92 billion
pounds) gets thrown out every year, amounting to an annual loss of $408
billion. At the same time, every fifth family is food insecure. Food Forward
operates to fill that gap and solve both problems at once, hustling to
distribute fresh food before it goes to waste.
Since its inception 15 years ago, it has rescued 217,000 tons of produce and
distributed it to nearly 300 hunger relief partners, mostly in Los Angeles and
surrounding counties, but every so often a truck of surplus travels as far as
Texas. “We are providing enough food every day that would meet the USDA
recommended daily requirements for 270,000 people,” Cox explains. “It equals
millions of dollars’ worth of food they don’t have to buy if we can just grab
it in time and move it.”
Preventing food waste also benefits the climate, not only because of the
resources, water and energy invested in food production but also because food
waste in landfills is one of the main sources of the climate gas methane. “Last
year, we prevented the emissions of more than 21,000 metric tons of CO2e,” Cox
says. “That’s the equivalent of taking 4,571 cars off the road for a year. And
we prevented 1.4 billion gallons of water from going to waste in 2023, the
equivalent of 2,129 Olympic-sized swimming pools.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
