Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: Fusion/Food Exposed
“On a recent night in New York City, a group of foragers pulled 50 perfectly edible bagels and a bag of untarnished, fresh produce out of the garbage,” wrote Eillie Anzilotti in a Fast Company article. And that’s just the beginning.

Full-time but low-paid workers use food pantries; farmworkers seek out secret donation sites so their kids can eat. And meanwhile, where there is so much hunger, perfectly good food goes to waste.

I was watching the documentary Money, by Manny Kirchheimer, recently and heard an interviewee talk about being a “freegan.” A clearly well-educated and accomplished woman, she just couldn’t bear seeing all the food that goes to waste in New York and joined a freegan group. Of course, I had to look it up.

This explanation comes from a 2018 Fast Company article by Eillie Anzilotti.

“On a cold March night in New York City, snow still on the ground from a late-season nor’easter, a small group gathered around a pile of trash outside a Morton Williams supermarket in Midtown East. There were around 40 to 50 plastic bags piled high. A lot of them held normal waste–discarded packaging, crusts from people’s lunches. But Janet Kalish, an organizer with New York’s freegan group, opened one bag to find around 50 intact, edible bagels.

“Kalish and a handful of dedicated freegans — people who pull edible food from piles of waste in an art commonly known as ‘dumpster diving’ — organize tours in New York every couple of weeks. During meetings, Kalish and her co-organizers will discuss the larger issues of the city’s food system, including why so much edible waste ends up on the street. They’ll give newcomers advice on how and when to forage (late at night but before garbage pickup is ideal), what to look for, and how to make use of their salvaged sustenance.” More here.

If dumpster diving seems too extreme, you may like the impressive array of startups and nonprofits trying to get unused — but good — food to those who need it.

As Scott Kirsner reported in December, “The stats on food waste are staggering: Up to 40 percent of all food produced in the United States is never consumed, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“The bulk of that gets tossed out — by restaurants, stores, and homes, according to ReFED, a California nonprofit that focuses on reducing food waste. And when it winds up in a landfill, it rots and produces methane — a greenhouse gas that is far more potent than carbon dioxide.

But one bit of good news is that there has been an increase in activity locally, on the part of both startups and nonprofits, to try to reduce food waste and ensure that more food gets to people who can’t afford it, while it’s still edible.

“Cambridge Crops, a startup in Somerville, is developing a new kind of protective layer for foods. It’s made from an edible protein extracted from natural silk. The company has been testing its coating on foods such as ground beef, cherries, and spinach leaves, demonstrating that it can inhibit the growth of bacteria and extend the amount of time the food can be sold by as much as 50 percent. The company raised $4 million from investors in July.

“Boston-based Phood Solutions is working on a system that couples cameras, scales, and software in a kitchen — say, at a big hotel or restaurant — to automatically identify what kinds of food are going to waste, and how much of it. …

“The Boston startup Spoiler Alert runs an online trading platform that enables food producers and distributors to get rid of excess inventory by selling it or donating it. Spoiler Alert charges subscription fees to sellers, as well as fees based on transaction volume. …

“Some of the food sold through Spoiler Alert winds up at discount grocery outlets like Daily Table, which sells food that is nearing its expiration date. …

“The nonprofit Food for Free distributed about 100,000 pounds of surplus food in the week leading up to Thanksgiving, says executive director Sasha Purpura. It asks donors such as Harvard University to freeze excess prepared food that would otherwise go uneaten, and then divides it into meals for people in need — including financially strapped students at state and community colleges, Purpura says.

“Food for Free will soon start collecting surplus food from Boston’s two convention centers, and in May the Cambridge biotech Biogen set up a kitchen in Kendall Square for the nonprofit’s exclusive use. …

“Hunger, says Ashley Stanley, ‘is not a problem of supply, but of distribution.’ Her Boston nonprofit, Lovin’ Spoonfuls, tries to address that. It collects food that would otherwise go unsold at grocery stores like Whole Foods and Big Y and distributes it to soup kitchens, safe houses, and after-school programs around the state.”

In the Globe article, you can also read about Boston Area Gleaners, CommonWealth Kitchen, Brewer’s Crackers, and more.