Currently, more than 10 percent of the U.S. population depends on nonprofit food distribution organizations for a significant part of their nutritional needs.
In the United States, it is estimated that there are 150,000 such private programs helping to feed the hungry. Virtually all these programs use recovered food. While their strategies and emphases may differ, they all operate under two common assumptions that:
Each program is distinct in terms of its size, organization, management, and clientele. Some programs are run by a handful of dedicated volunteers in a barely serviceable facility. Other programs are larger organizations with paid staff and state- of-the-art facilities.
The following programs represent six of the most common approaches.
In the United States, organized food recovery initiatives first gained recognition in the late 1960s. In 1965, John Van Hengel volunteered to feed homeless people in the dining room of St. Mary's mission in Phoenix, Arizona. For two years, he spent much of his time trying to establish programs to simply find food for the hungry.
One day during his work at the mission, Van Hengel met a woman who fed her children with food discarded from grocery stores. She said it was like finding a "bank of food." Thus the term "food bank" came to describe facilities that made food available to the hungry.
In 1967, Van Hengel founded St. Mary's Food Bank. As word of its success spread, groups from all over the country visited the Arizona facility for insight, inspiration, and instruction.
The sharing of knowledge and experience from the St. Mary's Food Bank led to the founding of Second Harvest in 1979 by John Van Hengel, who served as the first director of Second Harvest. At that time, Second Harvest was comprised of 13 food banks, distributing approximately 200 million pounds of donated food to local agencies serving needy families.
Today, Second Harvest has grown to the largest domestic charitable hunger relief organization in the United States, and the fifth largest charitable organization overall. In 1995, the Second Harvest network distributed 811.3 million pounds of food and grocery products, with a market value of more than $1 billion. This was done through 181 food banks and more than 50,000 local charitable agencies operating in all 50 states and Puerto Rico.
Independent research has found that the Second Harvest network helps provide emergency food relief to 26 million people each year, of which approximately 11 million are children and 4 million are elderly. Second Harvest's mission is to feed hungry people by soliciting and judiciously distributing marketable but surplus food and grocery products to regional food banks and agencies; to develop, certify and support Second Harvest food banks that channel food to local nonprofit charities; to serve as a liaison between food banks and donors; and to educate the public about the nature of and solutions to the problems of hunger.
Appendix B of this guide lists addresses and phone numbers of Second Harvest members.
In 1987, Mickey Weiss, a retired produce wholesaler, was visiting his son at the Los Angeles Wholesale Market. He watched as a forklift hoisted 200 flats of ripe, red raspberries, raspberries that had not sold that day, and crushed them into a dumpster!
Weiss' retirement didn't last long. Working out of donated office space at the market, he enlisted student volunteers to call community kitchens, while he persuaded friends in the produce business to "put good food to good use."
To make his dream a reality, he formed a team that included the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market and the Los Angeles County Department of Agriculture. Today, Mickey Weiss' Charitable Distribution Facility distributes more than 2 million pounds of produce a month throughout southern California.
In 1991, Susan Evans and Peter Clarke joined forces with Weiss. Wanting to replicate his concept nationwide, they designed a systematic consultation process to help cities begin their own fresh produce operations.
The project, From the Wholesaler to the Hungry (FWH), continues to help cities establish programs to channel large donations of fresh fruits and vegetables to community agencies. Adding fresh fruits and vegetables to the diets of low-income Americans improves their nutrition and their health, and helps prevent disease.
Appendix B lists contacts for FWH recovery and distribution programs.
Food rescue programs collect surplus prepared and perishable food from restaurants, corporate cafeterias, caterers, grocery stores, and other food service establishments. This food is distributed to social service agencies that help people in need.
By the late 1980s, pioneers of food rescue programs began to see themselves as members of a nationwide community of local programs working toward the same end and experiencing similar challenges and difficulties. Programs from all over the United States recognized the value of forming a national network and establishing a central resource center.
The network's goals were to actively promote the work of individual food rescue programs and to support their continued growth and development, without disturbing the original programs' diversity and grassroots nature.
The combination of these efforts is now called Foodchain. A network of prepared and perishable food rescue programs, Foodchain opened its doors in November 1992 with a staff of one.
Today, 116 member programs and 22 associate programs participate in Foodchain, distributing nearly 100 million pounds of food to some 7,000 social service agencies each year. Locations of these Foodchain programs are listed in Appendix B.
The Society of St. Andrew is a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending hunger by using surplus produce to feed the needy. Since 1979, the Society has gleaned 200 million pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables that were distributed to feeding agencies throughout the United States. This produce is given to foodbanks, soup kitchens, and food pantries free of charge. The Society has offices in Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, and Florida.
The National Hunger Clearinghouse is a program of World Hunger Year under contract with USDA. Its major emphases are gleaning and food recovery and answering the USDA Food Recovery Hotline: "1-800-GLEAN-IT"; however, the mission is much broader, providing information about numerous efforts to fight hunger across America. Included is information on hunger, nutrition, food security, sustainable agriculture, model poverty programs promoting self-reliance, and volunteer opportunities. The Clearinghouse database already has over 20,000 organizations listed, from soup kitchens to restaurants.