I volunteer at a food bank, and the company that sends us our food decides what we get. Last Tuesday they sent so much produce we could not fit it all into fridges. We were trying to give away cases of the food on Wednesday, but people were turning it down because they had no place to store a case of tomatoes, or cauliflower. This was what we had left after last Wednesday’s morning give away. Not pictured the 5000lbs of watermelons, the 2500lbs of onions (those will last a lot longer).
The company that supplies us wants to move from sending shipments every other week, to once a month. This would cause even more no produce loss.
It is so frustrating to have all this food for it to go bad. Even if we got the same volume of produce, but there was variation in what it is we could give it away easier.
Edit: I posted this in a comment.
Because of bureaucracy we have to request this. If it is found out we are giving away the food to unapproved recipients we can lose all of our funding. If we give to unapproved recipients and they in turn give us prepared food to give out, that is okay.
Word got out that we were loading up my pickup with food and taking it to the homeless camps. I did get a number of them to start coming to the bank to get food. But it was easier when I could take stuff to them.
We are not allowed to simply give it out to anyone. This is not like a church pantry where all of the food is donated by the community and’s parishioners. There is government funding, as well as private businesses, which I am guessing get their money back from the government for funding this. If we could simply give it to anyone we would not be in this situation.
Also: Where is this? It’s a small world, some Lemming might pick up a cauliflower or two.
Rural nm (edit NM is the state abbreviation for New Mexico, a lot of US residents, our president included, think we are actually Mexico, but they still recognize the postal abbreviation NM. Using it is a work habit I have.)
I take it “nm” stands for New Mexico. What’s the weather like there? Sun-drying might be an option, at least dried tomatoes are something people buy.
My first thought for some reason was “northern Manitoba” lol
I think your server might contain a hint as to why…
Not that you’re necessarily Canadian or in Canada, but you probably get more Canadian-centric posts on your local feed.
Oh yeah no it’s a big, fat hint haha
I was thinking North Macedonia or something, but then I remembered that the post referenced pounds
I have gotten used to using the state abbreviation for New Mexico because a lot of people in the states see the “Mexico” and assume it is not a state. But they see NM and know that is a state. I forget that outside of the US people generally know our states better. Hell even our president does not realize we are a state.
That’s really funny and really sad at the same time.
Most Canadians know all US states, and I’m fairly certain I can match 95% of state postal abbreviations to their corresponding state (save for the ones starting with M, good luck lol). I’d like to see Americans try to put the huge landmass that is Manitoba (MB) on a map 😄
I don’t think I’ve ever been confused between what’s Mexico and what’s USA, and I feel like uneducated racist people may just be going off of the name, like Nevada / Arizona being spanish names and New Mexico referencing Mexico.
Facebook canning groups are a great idea, as someone else mentioned. Them little old ladies can do pretty amazing things on short notice. Can I suggest hitting up local churches? The methodists, Episcopal and baptists are all particularly fond of doing drives and such, and may be able to do an impromptu canning drive for y’all
How rural? I found a Sikh temple north of Santa Fe that could maybe use it for their langar.
Where in North Madagascar?
Madagascar is pretty big.
North side of Main Street
Outside abq? If it’s near abq I’ll come get it
Messaged you
If you’re nearish ABQ, I’ve got a pickup I’m happy to help transport with. I unfortunately don’t think I’m in the list of approved people, otherwise I’d be more than happy to take as many of those tomatoes as I could. Unfortunately I can’t get my kid to eat cauliflower to save their life, so I have limited uses for that.
This same thing plays out at many major food banks countrywide.
Find out where the manufacturer’s warehouses and production plants actually are, and the nearest large food banks will be the recipients of their trash.
At the food bank where my mother works, she finds pig farmers are a good source to get rid of almost gone food. While it’s not solving the feeding people part, it does help with disposal. Good luck, hopefully you can pickle some of it too.
American Charity*
*Terms and conditions apply
For the company it is a tax write off and getting rid of their surplus. They don’t care what happens next.
It does help food banks significantly. I’m not complaining
I am when they pull shit like this making it a problem.
Tax write off of retail value (donated retail product), instead of tax write off of actual cost. I wouldn’t be surprised if the writeoff is net zero for them from retail value.
America has always been a place where transactions matter more than people. At least, it has been that way ever since European discovery. Native Americans were nowhere near this inhumane
The victims of the Aztecs would beg to differ. Lots of people were fed to the sun god, to quench its thirst for blood, all to delay Armageddon. Like any other continent, Native America had genocidal maniacs and the Five Nations that resembled a federation. Good and Evil has no homeland, just the feelings that grow inside of people.
At least the Aztecs were up front and direct about it.
Never said they were perfect. And you’re right, they were wrong in their beliefs about a sun god thirsting for blood. But me personally, I would rather be a warrior in their Flower Wars with at least a CHANCE to make my way in the world instead of the capitalist hellscape of the modern era where every path just leads to more suffering
If I were in that situation, I would try quickly whipping up some homemade posters and put them at our market square, maybe in front of schools, and in front of grocery stores. I would make sure to specify why these are given away, otherwise people might be suspicious.
That would probably illegal, but …well… who’s going to sue a food bank over hanging a few posters for 2 days?
In the US? Where we pour bleach on food that has been discarded to make sure that someone who is hungry can’t eat it?
But yes, this is a great suggestion. Also, looking for a local farm or farms that could feed these to their animals (specifically chickens or pigs).
I’m sure there will be people salivating at the opportunity.
Well, I commented that before I learned that OP is in New Mexico.
pickle pickle pickle!
2% salted water brine, spices, glass weights to maintain under water in not-too-tight closed jars with co2 escape. keep at room temperature, and here you go!
The jars likely cost more than the volume of produce it could store.
Also - have to arrange logistics for labor, supplies, and a kitchen to do the boiling in. Now that you are making a cooked food product, your kitchen also likely needs a license.
And insurance in case your rushed pickling operation creates any jars that go foul and anyone gets sick.
Also – ew. Not even the destitute want pickled cauliflower.
I was nodding along until
Not even the destitute want pickled cauliflower.
It’s great!
Yep food pantries will repackage food but rarely process or cook it because that’s a whole different animal.
But, many food pantries I’ve worked with had ways to offload large amounts of things creatively, it’s how I got the best pear gelato I’ve ever had in my life.
Use 20L food safe buckets.
You need to teach people how to do it themselves instead. They can do it in small groups helping each other making the event more joyful.
Wait - do you think that people who need food banks have a ton of free time for cooking clubs? Do you think it’s because they don’t work enough instead of what everyone knows which is that most people on the edge can’t make rent if they only have one job?
Why are you so judgemental without any reason?
Guess what, I work full time and I raised two kids alone and got time to cook. This being said, I fucking don’t know about them, but some would enjoy the initiative among them instead of being stuck with someone like you who is not seeking for solutions but someone else to blame.
Ooohhh I see, I am judgemental because your circumstances and stated preferences represent everyone in a hard place.
If you both could have and would have done it, it is completely reasonable to make that an expectation on everyone who struggles.
Your struggle was definitely representative of the worst circumstances bc you had 1 job and were a single parent – even though I mentioned how plenty of parents (including single ones) balance a FT job and gigs or a managerie of gigs. Or a FT job, single parenthood, and a disability. Or…
If you can’t see past your own life and circumstance, but want to proscribe what other people ‘should’ do (or no longer deserve your empathy), you are the one who is judgemental.
Pickeled cauliflower sounds so incredibly bad
Tomatoes, dont need any cooling, storing them in the fridge does prolongs their live but they taste like shit afterwards.
Greetings from a German Italian who cries often when people put tomatoes in fridges.
The ones I took home on Wednesday were moldy and a mess Friday evening when I got home from work.
Don’t they get their taste back when they reach room temperature again?
Afaik they don’t. Something about storing them at low temp changes the thickness of the skin. At least that’s what I’ve been told working on produce.
I’m one of the returns clerks in a Costco. First thing we do every morning is process stuff to send the food bank. It irks me how much stuff we aren’t allowed to send because the manufacturer won’t allow it. Even despite that we send a lot every day. Everything that does spoil at the food bank goes to a local pig farm, who donates pig products back to the food bank whenever he can.
We are trying to find one place that will consistently take our spoilage.
We get a lot of expired stuff from Walmart and the grocery store in town. But Walmart takes forever to get it to us. Usually when we get it, it is a week expired. Where the grocery store we get it a day or two before it actually expires.
Thank you pigs! Also compost piles.
It irks me how much stuff we aren’t allowed to send because the manufacturer won’t allow it.
Name and shame. This is such bullshit. I’m sure it’s some to protect brand value, but IMO you earn more value through kindness and generosity.
Well, all the Nestle stuff gets sent back to them. Pretty much all the big name cereal outfits have orders that damaged products are to be sent to a salvage company.
Happily most cheese and sliced meats can be donated, plus we generally send 8-10 shopping carts of baked goods and produce directly from us to them every day
yet another reason to really dig costco. huzzah, respect
I take it the most pressing issue right now is cooling. If that is right, you might have yet another avenue to explore: Ask facilities with cooling needs if you can store one or two pallets there. I’m thinking schools, (yet again) restaurants, ice cream parlors, ice skating rinks (not sure how they work exactly – is the whole building cooled or just the rink itself?), butchers. You could ask an outdoor gear shop (I mean a place where skis and winter jackets etc. are sold) if they know of a place where one can test jackets. They might know a cool place, too.
I am working at an Amazon company’s warehouse that specifically stores food items.
The amount of shit we throw in trash just because “packaging is slightly off” makes me angry and just one day of bad management spoils enough food to feed entire family.
There is no air conditioning or fridge. It’s summer in Texas so if we delay a single day, half the items go bad. There are dairy products here. (And people in border of heatstroke but that’s another topic.)
That’s fucking crazy and frankly also what I expected/why I would never order perishables from Amazon. Of fucking course they neither store it properly nor even keep the facility cool.
Amazon perishables are mostly whole foods. The UNFI cyberattack is going to cause likely hundreds of tons of spoiled product nationwide as they have no idea where to ship anything, and the production line doesn’t just stop having fresh product to process.
I wonder if your food bank can set up some kind of relationship with farms in your region. Those farms may be open to taking lots of spoiled produce as animal feed and compost material. In exchange they might share their crops with you.
Not being funny, but what the fuck is a homeless person going to do with a raw cauliflower?
I often see carrier bags of dry pasta, tinned tomatoes and stuff just dumped at the roadside, because the person they’d given it to has no way of doing anything with it. Apparently they’re supposed to give only food they can prepare, but that clearly doesn’t always happen.
Food waste is part of the system. It’s fine. It’s what stops a shortage from becoming a famine.
Not everyone who comes through the food bank is homeless.
You might try contacting restaurants and see if they have the capacity to cook ketchup (or something else with a longer shelf life) from the tomatoes. Technically, everybody can do that. I’m thinking of restaurants because of their bigger pots.
Speaking of restaurants: They might have a food dehydrator that can process some of the cauliflower, as well.
We have tried to work with restaurants in the past, giving them extra produce for free and they in turn have to prepare so many meals for unhoused and our volunteers and they refused.
We are looking at being able to use the community kitchen to process it ourselves. The issue then comes down to enough volunteer hours to do this.
extra produce for free and they in turn have to prepare so many meals
Nitpick: If you’re demanding that they do something in return, it’s not free.
In this case your two options are: A) Someone gets the food and puts it to use; B) it spoils. In this scenario I believe giving it away, no strings attached, might be the better option.
Because of bureaucracy we have to request this. If it is found out we are giving away the food to unapproved recipients we can lose all of our funding. If we give to unapproved recipients and they in turn give us prepared food to give out, that is okay.
Word got out that we were loading up my pickup with food and taking it to the homeless camps. I did get a number of them to start coming to the bank to get food. But it was easier when I could take stuff to them.
I hadn’t considered bureaucratic obstacles… that sucks.
The other obstacle is volunteer hours, as I mentioned in another reply, there is only so much we can do. Many of the volunteers are only there to get some extra food, others for community service (as required by a judge in restitution for a crime), others as required by their church. Most are ONLY there for the volunteer hours and do not care about anything other than getting their hours. They will not go beyond their basic duties.
There are weeks we barely have enough people to keep the doors open to give out food. I am no longer in a position to volunteer whenever they need me.
My workplace used to donate all its leftover food to a local meal service charity, daily. But they refused to take fresh fruits and vegetables because they just spoil too fast. It was sad because those are the foods people need the most but they are logistically very difficult to deliver, as you are witnessing.
GOOD! Spending money on that is SOCIALISM! Is would MUCH Rather my Tax Dollars go into Elon Musks BANK ACCOUNT!
For the watermelons you might try to contact a local vintner. They may be able to process them into wine and/or liquor.
My initial thought was that the sugar content in watermelon would be to low to acquire any watermelon taste when made into a wine without an artificial flavoring added, apparently watermelon has more sugar that I thought. (More than peaches apparently, never would have guessed that). Twice that of strawberries…
Usually you try to aim for about 18g of sugar in 100 grams of product for the fermentation. Which I think people used that just because that’s what grapes hover around and they ferment very well without additives.
