Redefining Food Recovery: A Closer Look at Salvaging 59 Million Pounds of Unused Edibles
City Harvest: Bridging the Gap Between Food Waste and Hunger in New York City
City Harvest, a 35-year-old hunger relief organization based in New York City, is on a mission to combat food waste and hunger. The organisation directs edible food to those who need it most, collecting and delivering over 500 community programs annually.
These community programs include soup kitchens, shelters, food pantries, and drop-in centers. City Harvest accepts a variety of food donations, ensuring that all donated food adheres to safety standards. The accepted food items range from nonperishable to perishable and prepared foods, as long as they are maintained in safe temperature zones and chilled or frozen before donation.
The organisation's operations are housed in the Long Island City Food Rescue Facility, which includes a large warehouse, a refrigerator, a freezer, and a volunteer repack room. The logistics unit, based in Brooklyn, spans approximately 132,000 square feet. City Harvest operates a fleet of 22 refrigerated trucks that make set routes to pick up food from various sources like farmers markets, grocery stores, restaurants, and events.
In 2017, City Harvest collected 59 million pounds of food across the five boroughs, rescuing and delivering over 600 million pounds of nutritious food for hungry New Yorkers to date. The food sourcing team works diligently to ensure that the food collected is nutrient dense, with 75% being fresh produce, meat, and dairy.
One of the community programs supported by City Harvest is the West Side Hunger Campaign Food Pantry. This supermarket-style food pantry operates on a point system based on the size of the household, according to USDA's MyPlate guidelines. The West Side Hunger Campaign Food Pantry is a co-op food pantry located at West End Avenue and 86th Street, mostly run by volunteers who are also customers.
Despite the challenging urban environment, City Harvest's trucks face the occasional parking ticket, which the organisation accepts as part of doing business. Workers in the warehouse joke about the mischief caused by produce bags that accidentally tear open.
Liz Clayton, a writer and photographer living in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, co-author of a world guide to the best coffee places to be published by Phaidon in July, 2017, has witnessed City Harvest's impact firsthand. The organisation's 1.25% waste margin of all the foods they process is a testament to their efficiency, and they are working to lower it even further. City Harvest trucks make an average of 15 to 20 stops a day, including pickups and deliveries, ensuring that no edible food goes to waste.
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