Keeping it out of the dumpster

Whole Earth Review, Spring, 1994 by Joseph McConnell

A typical food rescue operation is probably one that grew out of a food bank, setting up a program to deal with perishable food that was offered to the parent group. As such, it probably started with a reasonable idea of who the recipients would be -- by and large, the same groups receiving the nonperishable food -- and a very informal view of the sources. In fact, operations may start out with one source, perhaps a supermarket willing to donate its out-of-date baked goods. They're likely to begin with paid staff if the parent runs that way, with volunteers if that is the bank's normal mode. Their area of service is likely to start out small, perhaps substantially smaller than the parent bank. And they're probably going to operate as a transporter rather than as an enabler -- that is, as a group that gets food and moves it rather than as a broker who puts donors and recipients in touch with each other.

There are other patterns of development. Churches and universities have spawned food rescue efforts, and restaurant owners like Katharine Kagel in Santa Fe and Paul Saginaw in Ann Arbor have set up, funded, or otherwise encouraged fledgling programs. And to help out, to work with national corporations, and to provide standards of practice, there's a national association: Foodchain. Foodchain was established in 1992 by a group of food rescue organizations interested in boosting the visibility and credibility of the process. Their membership grew quickly; they now list the majority of US food rescue programs. A national organization may seem incongruous for groups that operate on such local levels, but because the field was expanding so quickly and serving so many people, there was beginning to be a need for standards. For example, food rescue deals with perishable food, just as food stores, restaurants, and wholesalers do. Those people have to operate under health and sanitation regulations; do food rescuers? What happens if people become ill after eating rescued food? Who is liable? Who screwed up? Is there a need for special standards for donated food, or is that just creating another bureaucracy? Part of Foodchain's purpose is to help member groups answer questions like those. They've made a start by requiring that affiliated groups operate under their own state and local health department rules, just as the food donors do. {Incidentally, the health record of food rescue is outstanding. No cases of serious illness related to rescued food have been reported.)

Another area in which national cooperation is becoming important is that of national donors. A local program with, say, three employees and a dozen volunteers is not going to have much luck approaching a national restaurant chain. They may even have trouble getting the local franchise to donate, especially if headquarters has concerns about liability. Foodchain, on the other hand, can approach companies on the national level; they've already been able to help Pizza Hut expand an existing donation policy. And the group is beginning to use the food industry's media to advantage. This year, Foodchain made presentations at the National Restaurant Association's trade show, and a Washington PR firm has donated time and space for an ad campaign that will run in restaurant trade journals. Food rescue depends on individual donors making small changes in the way they run their business: "Set it aside and call us, don't throw it out." To make that happen, the idea has to be planted, and Foodchain's argument is that a national group is best able to do that.