Posted by Elise Golan, USDA Director for Sustainable Development,
on January 7, 2015 at 9:00 AM
City Harvest rescues
excess food using a fleet of 19 refrigerated trucks, three cargo bikes, over
150 full-time employees, and more than 8,000 volunteers. In fiscal year 2015,
they will collect 50 million pounds of food, greater than the total amount of
food collected in its first 14 years combined. Seventy-five percent of this
total will be comprised of nutrient dense foods, including fresh produce, meat
and dairy. Photo courtesy of City Harvest.
Beginning in August, food
banks across the country competed to see who could sign up the most food donors
to the U.S. Food Waste Challenge. From among the 200 food
banks in the Feeding America network, the champion is City Harvest in New York
City, which won by signing up 114 donors to the Challenge. City Harvest
will have a private meeting with USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack and will be awarded
six suite tickets to attend either an NBA or NHL game at the Verizon Center in
Washington, D.C. The tickets were donated by Monumental Sports and
Entertainment (MSE), owner of the Washington Capitals, Mystics, Wizards, and
Verizon Center. Since 2011, MSE has recovered and donated 7,377 pounds of
wholesome unsold food from its events to D.C. Central Kitchen, which translates
to approximately 5,600 meals.
“We appreciate City
Harvest’s longstanding commitment to food rescue and congratulate them for
signing up the most food donors to the U.S. Food Waste Challenge,” said
Secretary Vilsack. “The United States enjoys the most productive and
abundant food supply on earth, but too much of this food goes to waste.
Organizations like City Harvest get this food to people who need it while
reducing the amount of food that ends up in our country’s landfills.”
Thanks to food banks and
food rescue organizations and their donors, Feeding America estimates
that 2.2 billion pounds of food or 1.9 billion meals were recovered from
businesses throughout the food supply chain from farms to grocery stores in
2013-2014. The donors that helped City Harvest win the competition by
signing up for the U.S. Food Waste Challenge included a local bakery, a
supermarket, a catering service and a restaurant chain. City Harvest’s
diverse food donors show that many businesses and organizations can have a role
in reducing food waste and hunger by recovering and donating unsold, wholesome
food from their operations. Other donors to food banks also include
farms, food manufacturers, food distributors, cafeterias, sports stadiums,
hotels and schools, so the competing food banks had a lot of potential
supporters in this friendly competition.
The U.S. Food Waste
Challenge was launched in June 2013 by the USDA and the Environmental
Protections Agency (EPA) to inspire schools, businesses, non-profits, and local
governments to join efforts to reduce, recover, and recycle food waste.
Together, the participants of the challenge are raising awareness and building
momentum for a food waste reduction movement in the U.S. Much like food
bank donors, participants to the U.S. Food Waste Challenge come from all over
and include elementary schools to baseball teams to movie production companies
to grocery stores.
To join the U.S. Food
Waste Challenge and be part of the movement, please visit:www.usda.gov/oce/foodwaste/join.htm.
It takes less than 5 minutes to join and share your story.
Feeding America is able
to recover a substantial amount of wholesome food from farm to retailer, but
they estimate that there are still 22 billion more pounds that could be
recovered from the retail level.
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