Food bank rescues over 3 million pounds of food as inflation persists, hunger grows

As food insecurity continues to swell, the price of groceries has followed suit, stretching hunger relief organizations to feed more mouths, often with the same amount of funds or less.

Food Bank of the Rockies has turned to its “Food Rescue” program to pick up the slack, engaging grocers for varying donated goods: ‘imperfect’ produce, accidentally overstocked items, discontinued products and more.

“Short-lived items such as produce … have to be perfect when (grocers are) selling it, so there’s a lot of stuff that could potentially be donated,” Food Bank of the Rockies Retail Food Donation Coordinator Dusty Lightfoot said. “We’re working with them to assure it’s all going out into the community at large.”

The organization’s Western Slope director, Sue Ellen Rodwick, said their recent focus on the program has been a substantial success, growing the program output by 2% last year.

“Last fiscal year, we rescued 3.7 million pounds of food out of the overall 12.5 million that we distributed across the Western Slope,” Rodwick said. “It’s a good amount, so to grow that even by 1% is huge.”

Although a 1% increase (about 37,000 more pounds of food) is substantial, Lightfoot said the program is actually on track to grow about 4% by the end of this fiscal year in

July. That translates to approximately 148,000 pounds of additional food.

SAVING FOOD SAFELY

The millions of pounds of food collected annually are not entirely sourced from, or delivered to, the Grand Valley.

Food Bank of the Rockies partners with stores across all of western Colorado, distributing the time-sensitive foodstuffs through their “hunger relief partners” (smaller food banks, mostly in rural areas).

“Obviously, we’re not driving up to Vail or Eagle, so we enable those hunger relief partners to pick directly up from the retailer, and we facilitate those relationships,” Lightfoot said. “It expands the ability to get it out quicker, so there’s less waste. That’s a big factor, specifically with those out-of-town places. If they had to wait for us to deliver, there’d be a lot more waste.”

According to Lightfoot, many of their hunger relief partners rescue the food themselves, as they have a refrigerated truck or an abundance of high-duty coolers and ice.

Regardless of how the other organizations transport the rescued food, she added that Food Bank of the Rockies provides the partners with substantial food safety training and procedures to ensure the food remains safe to eat.

One of those procedures is routine temperature checks, where the person charged with rescuing food must inspect the products’ temperatures upon receiving them, and later again when dropping the haul off at a food bank.

A GROWING RESCUE MISSION

Since the food bank already works with chain retailers and major farms in the area, Lightfoot said they have primarily grown the program by engaging smaller businesses and restaurants, like convenience stores and even bagel shops.

But, she added that their growth can also be attributed to how existing partners have ramped up their contributions as their relationship with the food bank has solidified.

According to Rodwick, their partnerships with Walmart and Sam’s Club have been especially fruitful, with just over a third of the food rescued last year (1.3 million pounds) coming from the giant chain

stores. Yet, she added that the two stores have not stopped there.

“Every year, (Walmart and Sam’s Club) do their Fight Hunger Spark Change Campaign. So, they have the whole food rescue side, and then they are educating the consumers and engaging local communities in donating,” Rodwick said. “The really fun part is the donations made here at the Western Slope Walmarts and Sam’s Clubs stay here on the Western Slope.”

Beyond asking customers to donate online or at check-out, the campaign raises funds for the food bank by donating a portion of the proceeds from participating products, including those under the Coca-Cola and Dole Packaged Foods suppliers.

Last year, Food Bank of the Rockies received enough funds through the campaign to provide nearly 500,000 meals to residents across the state facing food insecurity.

The campaign runs through the end of March. Additional information and a list of participating products can be found on the websites of Food Bank of the Rockies, Feeding America, Sam’s Club and Walmart.