Food Recovery - Catalyst Kitchens

This summer Catalyst Kitchens launched its new Working Groups Series, and members from across the country have joined discussions on a variety of topics. Below you can find a summary of some of the issues covered so far. If you have not yet participated, it is never too late! You can find the schedule for all the working groups on the CK events calendar. If you would like to join one of the groups, simply RSVP on the calendar.

1. Scaling Contract Meals

The Working Group on Scaling Contract Meals had its second meeting in August. The diversity of programs and systems that can successfully support a social enterprise were on display. The group discussions focused around fleet management and customer service arrangements in school and shelter meal programs. One specific highlight included Farestart’s fleet management and how to expand and manage logistics and deliveries when owning a fleet of vans in an urban environment. Also highlighted was the mutual benefit relationship between Second Harvest Food Bank and Eagle Express Courier in central Florida. Eagle Express handles all pickup and delivery for Second Harvest’s meals, allowing the social enterprise to expand operations without the worries of internal fleet management. Future conversations will cover the topics of diversifying lines of business, as well as client accrual practices and certifications in the school meals industry.

2. Communications & Outreach

How do you market your food service social enterprise? In this group, members are discussing the tools and techniques to building a recognizable brand. As small non-profits, many organizations don’t have the capacity or resources to create the compelling communications assets used by other businesses in their area. What makes CK members stand out? The underlying mission and impact of our work. On the next Communications & Outreach working group call, we’ll hear from members around how they weave stories and anecdotes into numbers and facts reporting to create compelling communications for both customers and funders.

3. Intake & Recruitment

There are many diverse populations served by CK member organizations across the country and an equally diverse approach to how members manage the student intake process. In this working group we discuss the utility of intake elements, such as trial periods (a probationary period whereby a dropout won’t bring down retention numbers) and drug tests (half of the participants in this group do not drug test students as relapse was often unrelated to why students left program). We dive into the interview questions and applications used by members, noticing similarities and discussing differences. Tune in for the next Intake & Recruitment working group call when we’ll explore different presentations used by members during new student orientation.

4. Fundraising & Development

What are your organization’s primary funding sources? In our network, the answer is often a laundry list of foundational grants, federal dollars, philanthropic donors, and diverse streams of social enterprise revenue. How do members navigate through this complex space and what avenues have been most rewarding? In our upcoming call, the Fundraising & Development working group will focus on funding for new business expansion. Select member staff have been invited to speak about their strategies to support expansion projects, including capital campaigns, new market tax credits, and leveraging corporate partners.

5. Food Recovery

CK Members are at the forefront of food recovery. Our first working group call touched on several areas: the logistics of pick ups and issues with storage; value added processing and how to offset costs of production; and where members source their food recovery standards and protocols. Future calls will continue to explore these topics in addition to the role of technology in food recovery and how to work within your local food recovery eco-system.

Food Hubs

Locally sourced food is on the rise in the United States with many consumers preferring to support their local economy rather than purchasing produce at large grocery retailers. While local food suppliers tend to have higher quality product, they typically struggle with the distribution of their product, making access to local produce difficult.

Food hubs help to solve this problem.

Food hubs act as a conduit or “the middle man” for smaller and mid-sized farmers to access different food markets, including retail, institutional, and commercial food service markets. Food hubs provide access to to larger markets through distribution and marking services at an affordable price. Both services open up new markets and major opportunities for local suppliers.

Food hubs not only support the local economy, they can also support the local community. More than one third of all food hubs in the states today are declared as a nonprofit and serve a higher social mission, including higher wages for farmers and providing fresh foods to under-served populations. Community feeding operations are interested in providing fresh produce for their clients for more nutritious meals. Member organizations in our network are finding new and innovative ways to source produce at a low cost, including the food hub model and food recovery efforts.

Food hubs have their own set of challenges. Food hubs typically run at a break-even level before depreciation, often with little to no room for fluctuations in spending. This is more prevalent within nonprofit food hubs if they rely heavily on grants or community contributions for a large part of their funding. Food hubs struggle to compete in a large scale food industry environment, costs of distribution are lower on a larger scale and major food companies are more likely to receive government subsidies that supplement their operational costs.

Despite some setbacks, food hubs can serve as a wonderful advocate for the local economy and connect consumers with ethically sourced fresh produce. Food hubs are one step among many to create a more inclusive food system to benefit nonprofits and enterprise alike. To get your own food hub started or to learn more, The Healthy Food Access Portal, started in 2009 by PolicyLink, The Food Trust, and Reinvestment Fund, has a list of key strategies that address everything from financing to site development. Our members aim to serve healthy, nutritious food to their students and have trainees learn knife skills with fresh ingredients during the program. Everyone wins with a healthy local economy and food system!

Citations:
“Food Value Chains and Food Hubs: Supporting Local Producers Through Collaborative Planning, Aggregation, and Distribution,” USDA
“Are Farmers Market Sales Peaking? That Might Be Good For Farmers,” NPR
“Counting Values: Food Hub Financial Benchmarking Study,” NGFN Food Hub Collaboration
“From Farm to Table,” Rowan Jacobsen
“Healthy Food Access Portal” PolicyLink, The Food Trust, Reinvestment Fund

The numbers are staggering. Nearly two billion tons of food, worth about $1 trillion, is wasted globally each year at all levels: production, distribution, and consumption. Food waste in the United States accounts for about 40% of all food produced, and the amount of food wasted in this country has been steadily increasing. In 1980 Americans threw out roughly 107lbs of edible food per person, which surprisingly represented a 15% decline from 1960. In 2012 we each threw away more than 220lbs, and estimates place that figure closer to 250lbs today.

In recent years many new and innovative enterprises have launched to reduce food waste at all levels of scale. Imperfect Produce is an app-based, affordable csa program that sources “ugly” fruits and vegetables from local farms. Full Circle Feed makes dog treats from food recovered from a casino buffet. Students at the University of Maryland, College Park, started the Food Recovery Network to direct unused foods from campus to local nonprofits fighting hunger. In just five years they have expanded to over 229 chapters in 44 states. These efforts have joined established organizations like Feeding America, a nationwide network representing 200 food banks, including CK members TCK-Providence, Second Harvest of Central Florida, Vermont Food Bank, Philabundance, and new member Maryland Food Bank. Feeding America reported rescuing 1.4 million tons of food in 2016.

vegetables gleaned by Vermont Food Bank

In the Catalyst Kitchens network, Michelle Wallace, Director of Community Health and Fresh Food Initiatives at member Vermont Food Bank, believes awareness surrounding food waste is on the rise. “One of the stories that has really captured people’s imagination recently is reducing food waste,” Wallace says, pointing to a state law in Vermont, which will phase out organic material in landfills by 2020, as having focused attention in their area on the issue.

Vermont Food Bank’s training program, Community Kitchen Academy (CKA), primarily uses rescued food in its production. “We purchase such a small amount of food it almost doesn’t show up on a budget.” Some of the food used by the CKA comes from the food bank’s large scale gleaning program, where two fulltime staff work with about 600 volunteers on 80 farms to harvest and deliver almost 250,000 pounds of produce a year.

Having a training program is also an asset which helps Vermont Food Bank accomplish its mission, “to make sure food does not go to waste and gets to the people who need it.” The CKA can frequently use donated product that would otherwise be turned away, according to Wallace. “Highly perishable foods, product that is close to date, gleaned product from farms which might not go so well on the shelf of the food pantry, the kitchen can handle that product.”

Many food banks lack this ability to upcycle marginal produce into distributable foods. Wallace believes that this is where a Catalyst Kitchens member wanting to start their own recovery program can partner with food banks who are already doing a lot of food rescue work. “I think there is a real opportunity for CK members to build a relationship with their local food banks, to be a real resource for the utilization of donated food. I think the members have a lot to offer in being able to utilize that food and turn it into something that can increase someone’s access to healthy food. I would be really excited see more of those types partnerships.”

Dani Knapstad, Community Meals Kitchen Manager at CK member FareStart, began a project to revitalize their food recovery program in the summer of 2016. As part of that effort, she applied for a grant from Americorps, bringing in VISTA Ashley Propes to assist in creating sustainable systems. “Above all else in food recovery, food safety is top priority, so having the right policies and procedures in place is of the utmost importance,” Knapstad explains. Second to that is training value. “Knowing what your mission is and what is going to work well for you is very important. What you are going to get out of your food recovery effort is dependent on your resources.” When FareStart received a donation of milk – “a lot of milk, cases and cases of milk” – the kitchen seized the opportunity for training by making cheese with the students.

Knapstad emphasizes how crucial consistency is when starting a food recovery operation. Key to this approach are not turning down a donation and showing the donor that you will be a reliable partner. “When we reached back out to former partners like the WA Sate Convention Center, we just made a point of not turning down anything. Now we’ve shown them for a full year that we will consistently come, we have more leeway, and they are more willing coordinate with us. You have to be flexible. You might get way more stuff than you’ve made room for in your cooler, like when you get 15 cases of beef bones instead of two.”

Like Vermont Food Bank, FareStart is also working further upstream to reduce waste at the point of production, and gleaning is becoming an important part of the revamped food recovery program. They have partnered with an innovative new organization, Farms for Life, who work to help area farmers Farms for Life recognized that it is not only imperfections that lead to crops wasting in the fields, rather many small growers simply do not have the funds or resources to harvest and package the produce they would like to donate. Farms for Life purchases these crops at a reduced price to help offset the cost of harvesting this surplus crop and then donates it to partner organizations like FareStart, who can get this high-quality produce to people with limited access to fresh, local foods.

Catalyst Kitchens members have a wealth of experience in food recovery and the potential for more fruitful discussions is ripe (sorry!). Look for the CK Working Group on Food Recovery to begin later this year.

Sources and Resources

Americans throw out more food than plastic, paper, metal, and glass (Washington Post)

Produced but never eaten: a visual guide to food waste (The Guardian)

Half of all US food produce is thrown away, new research suggests (The Guardian)

U.S. Food Waste Challenge / FAQ’s (USDA)

Sustainable Management of Food (EPA)

Fleet Management, Marketing, and Food Recovery: CK Working Group Update, September 2017