I began volunteering several months ago.
The way it works is I open the Food Rescue Hero app, which allows me to sign up to pick up and deliver food — kind of like Grubhub, Doordash or other food ordering apps. I’ve picked up from universities, food stores, restaurants, farmers markets and events and delivered to local schools, nonprofits and senior housing facilities.
The difference is that the amount of food diverted from the trash is recorded.
At least one-third of the food produced in the world each year — including in the U.S. — is wasted. At the same time, millions of people here and abroad struggle to find enough food to eat, or face starvation. Trashing food also contributes to the climate crisis, as decomposing organic matter produces methane — a greenhouse gas that is 100 times more destructive than carbon dioxide in the short term.
Enter food rescue organizations, including Haven’s Harvest in New Haven, Connecticut.
“I was trying to find places for the food,” Lori Martin, the group’s co-founder and executive director, said. “I thought the food was going to go to food pantries and soup kitchens, but I was so naïve. It turns out that the food can’t necessarily go to those places, because either the type of food or the timing or the amount of food, and it doesn’t always fit those models.
“But in the meantime, we were picking up really wonderful, delicious, nutritious food and then we didn’t have places for it.”
In each of the past three years, Haven’s Harvest has diverted 1.5 million pounds of food from the waste stream. Over 400 volunteers pick up from 150 sites and deliver food to 250 locations.
MT: Tell me how you put it all together.
LM: So we reached out initially to the Elderly Services Department in New Haven and said, “Can we connect with some of your sites? Because we had this wonderful food to share.” It just started like that. We had a meeting with the city, and then someone called to say, “I was at a bakery. It was closing time and they were tipping trays of sandwiches and pastries into the trash.” And so the city employee called to say “Can you pick up that food?” And I told them there is a way. And it just kept growing like that, by word of mouth.
MT: How do you make the matches? I don’t know how often when you pick it up, and you think you’re getting it out of the waste stream, and you deliver it somewhere and it ends up getting thrown out anyway!
LM: We know that’s a pain point. We’re working on a food recovery hub, so we want to create the first food recovery hub in Connecticut and we want to do it here in New Haven. We have a tiny space in a rented warehouse. So we really do need a site with ample cold storage and other storage, and a commercial kitchen. We would like a micro grocery or a social grocery as part of our hub, so people can come and get good food at a modest cost.
MT: So then you could repackage in smaller amounts some of the hundreds of bagels or huge trays of pasta that volunteers pick up. For me at least, as a volunteer, there’s a hierarchy of places that I would like to pick up from. I do not like to pick up from donut shops. I’ve done it; it’s not something I want to do on a regular basis. One time I picked up from one of the colleges at Yale and got eight trays of real food. That was pretty great.
LM: Can I say something about donuts? Donuts still count. People should get treats if they want them. And I don’t want to be the gatekeeper. That’s not what I go after — what I really want is protein and produce. But this food is still being made and it’s going to waste. There’s a double piece of that: one is that, I think what our food does — even when it’s bread, which might have some nutrition but certainly not as much as protein and produce — what we know it does is it buffers a family’s budget or an individual’s budget, so if you get free bread then you have an extra couple of dollars to spend for the other pieces that you need for your full meal.
Most places donate food weekly. At Liuzzi’s in North Haven, volunteers pick up the high-end prepared Italian delicacies, like eggplant parmigiana, stuffed mushrooms and chicken and other meat dishes six days a week.
“A few years back, Lori came to Liuzzi’s; she approached us with food rescue and told us about the program,” Liuzzi’s manager Ryan Cosgrove said. “When she had mentioned that it was giving back to the community, any product that we were going to toss out in the next day or two, instead of wasting the food, we could give back.”
“[We were] sifting through product and there was some product that was getting tossed out even though it had a decent amount of shelf life still remaining, and we were looking for a source where we could kind of ... donate that wasted food,” Cosgrove added.
So, even though it’s imperfect, Martin said Haven’s Harvest is accomplishing three things: lowering trash disposal costs, reducing climate-harming methane in the atmosphere and feeding local people.
For example, one of the recipients is the 180 Center in New Haven. It’s bustling with men participating in their 18-month recovery program — and on this day, a group of unhoused people are waiting for lunch.
“They bring in lasagna; they bring in so many great little meals, and whatever these guys don’t use, we put it on the table and let the homeless take them,” Jon Ecker, who helps run the program, said. “Nothing goes to waste. Nothing."
These leftovers make a big difference for people like Jay O'Brien, who is working through his recovery program.
“It feeds me four nights a week, and it’s not a crummy meal," O'Brien said. "It’s excellent food. I’m extremely grateful for it.”