​It seems so simple at first – food being wasted, people going hungry. Just rescue the food and get it to a place where people who need it can access it. Easy peasy. Nope.
 
Food waste is complicated. That’s why it exists. Business dictates that if there’s cost involved in putting it to use, it’s not worth it. Never mind whether you can make it sellable again. The grocery store is a good example. On average, a grocery store throws out a full pallet of edible food every day. They can’t sell perishables past their sell-by date. They don’t have time to trim, sort, and repackage aging vegetables. A frozen turkey with a small rip in the wrapper? Not safe to sell. Bakery items are considered stale after one day in many cases, and we expect our stores to offer a whole wall of fresh-baked options. Bakery waste is so prevalent, many food banks won’t accept it.
 
How about restaurants? They’re good at making stuff out of excess small amounts, feeding their staff or offering a special soup. But anything that’s been opened or prepped can’t be donated by most charities’ rules. If it’s fresh and it’s ready to be ordered and finished, it probably can’t be held over until the next day. Never mind all the meat scraps, vegetable peels, bones, and other items that would make nutritious soup stock. It takes too much time and labor. Bruised fruit and expired yogurt for smoothies? No, they’re garbage. You can’t hold them long enough to wait for some volunteer to maybe show up and get them to a pantry, which then offers them to folks in need a few days later. When the restaurant closes at 11:00 or midnight, there aren’t enough people willing to be out that late to pick up ready-to-eat leftovers, and is it safe to visit homeless camps at that hour? Most of the restaurant industry has a narrow margin of profit, and the donation mechanism is too awkward.
 
How about industrial food production companies? Manufacturers and prepared food packagers and meat processing plants? All the ones I’ve come across donate some of their waste. But if it’s complicated, contaminated, or super perishable, it’s going to the dumpster. A walk-in freezer fails? Everything in it will be tossed out, even if it’s only off for a couple of hours. Food safety regulations demand it.
 
There was a big stink during the pandemic when a grocery store in East Portland lost power. They would have loved to donate all their refrigerated food. But nobody knew how long the power would be off. When Oregon Food Bank was contacted, there was no one available to pick up, no guarantee that items had been held at safe temperatures, and no programs ready to respond quickly and get the food to people. So it all had to go in the dumpsters. For safety. I get it. Some of the people needing donated food are the most vulnerable in our society – poor, elderly, sick, disabled, addicted, or mentally unstable. We should ensure they receive a better diet, not a leftover garbage one.
 
After major holidays, some stores donate hundreds of pies. Imagine the old folks on the street getting a whole pie just handed to them out a car window! For a while we were picking up hundreds of leftover donuts late every night and keeping them in our cars. The next day, we could drive around downtown handing them out to people on the streets. So fun! They were delighted. I know, no nutrition involved and it isn’t really helping them, but it brought out a lot of smiles. And it kept those items out of the waste stream, which is turning out to be a bigger issue that most people realize. But a volunteer messed up and gave them to their coworkers, then told the shop how happy they all were. The shop got angry and stopped donating.
 
Tomorrow I’ll write about how complicated it is for hungry people to find help. Then we’ll start talking about solutions. Please come back, especially if you’d like to be part of the solution.