Borderlands Food Bank rescues fresh produce before it is sent to the landfills. Cheryl Evans/azcentral.com
The amount of food that's thrown away in America is staggering but "invisible," experts say. Borderlands Food Bank is one Arizona organization that's helping bring the problem into focus.
(Photo: Cheryl Evans/The Republic)
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Borderlands Food Bank rescues fresh food to fight waste in America, where more than 25 million struggle with hunger
- The rescued food is sold at Saturday-morning markets across metro Phoenix; shoppers pay $10 for 60 pounds of fruits and vegetables
- A family of four loses more than $1,500 a year to wasted food, according to the Ad Council's “Save the Food” campaign
It’s not often you need a laundry basket and umbrella to grocery shop.Yet that’s what Jeannette Dubé and Ian Nunez brought to the POWWOW market on an especially rainy Saturday morning in February.The Phoenix couple were near the front of a line that wrapped around Faith Bible Church in Glendale. Behind them, a crowd of people braved the cold, wet and wind. They had empty tote bags, coolers and wagons. All waited until they could fill those vessels with 60 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables for just $10 cash.POWWOW stands for Produce on Wheels without Waste. It’s one of several programs run by Borderlands Food Bank, a Nogales, Ariz.-based non-profit that rescues food before it goes to the landfill.
Borderlands is one of a growing number of groups working to fight food waste in America, where more than 25 million people are unsure where their next meal will come from.At its core, food waste is an economic, social and environmental issue. The amount of food that's thrown away in America is staggering.
- At least 30 percent of the food produced annually in the U.S. ends up in the trash.
- Each American tosses about 240 pounds of food a year.
- A family of four loses more than $1,500 a year to wasted food.
- Food is the No. 1 trash component in America’s landfills, and the gas from its decay contributes more to climate pollution than all of the cars in Georgia.
“There are huge resource implications of how much we throw out,” said Dana Gunders, lead scientist for the National Resource Defense Council's food waste work.
To start, every bit of tossed food represents dollars thrown away, she said. Then there’s the water and environmental resources that were used to grow or raise that food. Plus, the gas it took to ship and the materials it was packaged in. And it’s all happening while our neighbors are hungry.
“It’s a moral conundrum,” Gunders said. “There’s a certain disrespect you show when you just throw food away.”
Food waste is at an all-time high in this country. But there's hope that we can stem the tide. Non-profits, government agencies and companies are setting waste-reduction goals and working together to raise awareness at the consumer level, where most of the waste occurs.
That's where Nunez and Dubé come in.
A box of eggplant are part of the rescued produce for sell at Produce on Wheels-With Out Waste at Faith Bible Church in Glendale. Produce on Wheels-With Out Waste sells 60 pounds of fresh produce for $10. (Photo: Cheryl Evans/The Republic)
Saving food, saving money
Moving through the POWWOW market line, Nunez held the umbrella over Dubé as she filled her laundry basket with six clamshells of organic grape tomatoes, five yellow squash, two bags of mini bell peppers, four eggplants and dozens of other pieces of produce provided by Borderlands Food Bank.
The couple didn't need to be there. Though they had a tight budget like many families with kids, they could afford to buy food from the store. But they get a lot more food for a lot less money by shopping at POWWOW. And, it's fresh food, not frozen or packaged.
Most of the vegetables Dubé passed in line looked like what you’d find at a grocery store. But some were less than ideal — green peppers with wrinkly skin, heirloom tomatoes with bruises, eggplants with mold spots. Volunteers worked to remove those bad apples while shoppers simply picked around them. “It’s all good stuff,” Nunez, 47, said of the selection.in ow where their next meal will come from.
Photos
Arizona's food waste could feed thousands
The couple paid $10 for a haul that would have easily cost more than $70 at a grocery store. With the money she saved, Dubé, 29, said she could take her two kids to see a movie. And maybe put a little in savings. Plus, the abundance of fresh food “forced” her family to eat healthy food.
“It’s huge,” she said of the difference it makes to shop at POWWOW markets, which are held on Saturdays at rotating sites in Phoenix, Chandler, Scottsdale, Mesa, Goodyear and a host of other cities.
All that food — and savings — would have gone to waste if it weren’t for Borderlands Food Bank, founded by Yolanda Soto about 23 years ago.
A Nogales native, Soto, 67, grew up watching semis transport billions of dollars of Mexico-grown produce into the border city, where it’s sorted and stored before being shipped across the country. Soto bore witness to the waste that happened when those companies dumped food they didn’t think they could sell.
“It’s a consumer-driven market,” Soto said, a shrug in her voice.
Soto is a believer in second chances, in opportunities for new life. So she started pitching an idea to produce companies: Instead of tossing product, save the money you’d otherwise spend in landfill fees and worker wages and call her. She’d use Borderlands trucks to come pick up the food and pay for a warehouse to store the food.
Why wouldn’t a produce company think it could sell product? Myriad reasons, she said. Usually, it’s a cosmetic issue. The tomatoes have rain stains, the acorn squash have discoloration. Or it could be an economic one — there’s a glut in the tomatillo market.
Yolanda Soto, President and Chief Executive Officer of Borderlands Food Bank in Nogales, Arizona, rescues fresh produce before it goes to the landfills. Most of the time the reason the produce won't sell is because of cosmetic damages such as rain stains and discoloration. (Photo: Cheryl Evans/The Republic)
“Right now, the tomatoes I have will last you 15 days,” she said, standing inside a Borderlands warehouse. That’s longer than a tomato from a store would typically last, she added.
One thing is for sure, Soto said, the reason for donating produce has nothing to do with the food not passing inspections or being unsafe. Food that fails inspections can’t be sold. She only accepts food that’s 70 percent or better, meaning at least seven out of 10 vegetables in a case have to be perfect. In more than two decades, she has never had to recall food or had a food-safety complaint, she said.
“Even though we’re rescuing, we’re not rescuing out of a landfill, for God’s sake.”
Each year, Borderlands keeps up to 40 million pounds of produce from the garbage. Yet the companies they take donations from actually produce a tiny portion of total waste in America.
Produce companies and farmers represent just 10 percent of the 63 million tons of food that’s wasted annually across the country. That's according to ReFed, a coalition of businesses, non-profits and government leaders including the National Resource Defense Council, Fink Family Foundation and Walmart Foundation that aim to reduce U.S. food waste by 20 percent over the next decade.
The bulk of food waste — 80 percent — happens at the consumer level: in grocery stores, homes and restaurants.
How can we reduce food waste?
Borderlands Food Bank in Nogales, Arizona partners with the Department of Corrections to help with the costs of rescuing produce. (Photo: Cheryl Evans/The Republic)
Making food waste more visible has been the cause of passionate individuals and non-profits for decades.
Now, businesses and public agencies are joining the cause.
Last year, the Ad Council and the National Resource Defense Councillaunched a “Save the Food” campaign, putting statistics about waste on donated billboard print and digital space. Did you know trashing a single egg represents 55 gallons of wasted water?
Universities, including Harvard and Arizona State University, hold forums and study the issue from a sustainability perspective. In the 2014 award-winning documentary “Just Eat It,” two filmmakers stop grocery shopping and eat only food that would otherwise be thrown away.
At the local government level, San Francisco has been at the forefront of the movement, adopting an aggressive anti-waste goal: zero waste by 2020. In other words, 100 percent of waste is recycled or composted.
Through a mix of incentives, services and mandates, San Francisco has regulated garbage since 2002. Residents, businesses and event organizers are required to separate recyclables, compostable material and landfill-bound trash. While people in Phoenix have separate bins for trash and recyclables, those in San Francisco have a third bin for compost.
At the federal level, in 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency issued a domestic goal to reduce food waste by 50 percent by 2030. To help achieve that, the EPA created the Food Recovery Challenge, where businesses and groups pledge to take action against waste. Groups set goals and track progress while the agency provides technical support and recognizes the best work with annual awards. More than 850 organizations have signed up, including Phoenix-based Sprouts Farmers Markets and the three Arizona state universities.
Borderlands Food Bank in Nogales, Arizona warehouse is filled with rescued fresh produce like these heirloom tomatoes. Most of the time the reason the produce won't sell is because of cosmetic damages such as rain stains and discoloration.
The EPA also released a Food Recovery Hierarchy to guide organizations in their efforts to prevent or divert wasted food by prioritizing where they’ll do the most good. For example: Divert scraps to animal feed before sending them to compost.
The private sector wants to help, too. The ReFed coalition's 91-page report, “A Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Waste by 20 Percent,” outlines 27 solutions and an $18 billion investment estimated to net $100 billion in societal economic value over a decade.
America has “reached a turning point,” Gunders said. Now, people are aware of the waste problem and want to take action. This next period is what she calls “foundation building.” We must:
- Examine inefficiencies in the food system.
- Define metrics to understand the scope of the problem.
- Work to change consumer attitudes toward waste.
“Five years from now," she said, "we’ll have a much better idea of how to handle this, what governments should be doing.”
But Borderlands might not have five years. It needs help now.
Fighting waste isn't cheap
Soto, Borderlands' president and CEO, has a “shoestring budget.” Most of her money goes toward fueling and maintaining the second-hand semis that transport food to POWWOW market sites across Arizona and to other food banks in the country. She spends $15,000 a month to lease two warehouses in Nogales that store donated produce. She’s struggling to make ends meet and thinks it’s only a matter of time until she has to give one up.
“We’ll have to cut back,” she said. “We’ll have to tell produce donors we can’t take it and then people won’t have as much food.”
Borderlands doesn’t have a grants writer or a communications director or any of the other positions larger non-profits use to raise money and awareness. Soto has just a handful of people on staff who help with data entry, produce pickup and event planning. Much of the hard labor is handled by inmates from the Catalina Unit of the Arizona State Prison Complex in Tucson. Volunteers, mostly church members and community activists, are the backbone of the offsite events.
Sitting in her border-city office, in a warehouse that has seen better days, Soto is the one who answers when the phone rings. She takes calls from produce companies about donations and relays the information to Jesus Serrano, director of operations. On the line with Paul Kwan, the Phoenix-based director of programs, she breaks the news that Borderlands can no longer afford to print 300 shopping checklists to send to each of the 13 to 16 weekly POWWOW sites.
When people wander up creaky stairs and down the hallway into her office, Soto stops what she’s doing to help them register with Borderlands so they can take boxes of food back home. There are no income qualifications to get food from Borderlands. Soto asks people to register so she has a way to contact them if there is ever a food recall.
When a new site in metro Phoenix signs up to host a POWWOW market, she drives up from Nogales for the meeting. She’s waiting for that “partner in the sky” to come secure Borderland's future.
A box of roma tomatoes are part of the rescued produced for sell at Produce on Wheels-With Out Waste at Faith Bible Church in Glendale. Produce on Wheels-With Out Waste sells 60 pounds of fresh produce for $10.
Back in Glendale, Dubé and Nunez are unaware of Borderlands’ struggles. They hurry to load the laundry basket of fresh vegetables into their minivan so they can finally get out of the rain. Despite the storm, it’s been a good morning.
The bounty they’re taking home represents one sliver of a complicated problem. The tomatoes, squash, peppers, eggplants and other vegetables in their backseat won't end up rotting in a landfill. Instead, they’re going home to help feed a family.
As they dry off in their van, the couple make plans to turn the multitude of tomatoes they got into salsa. They sure have a lot of food, but it won’t go to waste.
“If we know we’re not going to use it, we give it away,” Dubé said.
“Share it.” Just like Borderlands.
arizonarepublic
Ideea in spatele conceptiei este grozava daca cineva locuieste in apropierea acestori centre de distributie al produselor agricole refuzate, care n-au trecut de controlul de calitate ca deja nu erau frumoase ca se culeze azi dimineata sau din alte motive. N-am auzit de ele pan-acum dar nici nu merg pan-acolo sa stau la coada ca este departe si cat dau pe benzina si timp pierdut imi cumpar langa mine de ce am nevoie ceea ce este de dat 30 de kg de legume si fructe cumulat pentru 10 dolari.
