What Can We Do With Extra Groceries and Produce?
- Alan Hua
- Sep 15, 2022
- 2 min read
Have you ever bought groceries, not realizing you had the same items at home? Maybe your pantry is full of goods you might not need and you are worried your excess food will go expired before you get the chance to eat it. Or, you may have a local garden with extra produce you would like to donate to a local food pantry. Fortunately, there are many organizations that make it easy for you to donate your excess food to those in need.
Starting with MealConnect, this platform by Feeding America works to make it fast, simple, and safe to donate your excess food to your local food bank. With MealConnect it’s as simple as posting a picture of your donation, writing a brief description, and scheduling a time for someone at your local food pantry to pick up the food. Participating in all 50 states, MealConnect has facilitated over 7 million donation pick-ups and rescued about 3 billion pounds of food since 2014. The best news is that this platform is completely free to use!
As mentioned before, there are many organizations that make it fast and simple to donate food to those in need in your community. In my home state of New Jersey, the food rescue program, Table to Table picks up fresh, high quality and wholesome foods that otherwise would be discarded and delivers them safely to their agency partners, including soup kitchens, homeless shelters, and senior facilities that serve nutritious meals to the hungry. With its fleet of refrigerated vehicles, Table to Table has rescued 74,000 tons of food in New Jersey, enough for 227 million meals.
On a larger scale, Farmlink is an organization that aims to close the gap between food waste and food insecurity by connecting farmers to food banks. Farmlink works by delivering food, that would otherwise go to waste, to food banks so that families in need can be fed. From 2020 to 2022, over 70 million pounds of food have been rescued and 58 million people served.
With millions of people going hungry in the United States and billions of pounds of food going to waste, it is crucial that everyone plays their part in eliminating food waste. Check out some of the mentioned organizations below to get involved in the fight against food waste and food insecurity.
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