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Boulder Food Rescue Hits Milestone of Redistributing 3 Million Pounds of Food

Boulder Food Rescue · Jul 5, 2019 ·

Janee Harris, Donor Coordinator for Boulder Food Rescue, picks up donations from Sprouts in Boulder on Monday.

Boulder Food Rescue last month notched a new milestone: The nonprofit has redistributed 3 million pounds of food since its founding in 2011.

Volunteers, the majority of them traveling on bikes, ferry perishable food and particularly fresh fruits and vegetables from grocery stores to nonprofits and dozens of sites. At many of those sites, grocery program coordinator volunteers distribute the food to their neighbors. The nonprofit, through the work of nine staffers and about 150 volunteers, now recovers about 1,500 pounds of food per day that would otherwise be wasted.

“It feels pretty amazing,” said executive director Hayden Dansky. “I think it goes to show that we have grown and that we have big impact in this community. It’s worth celebrating for sure.”

Boulder Food Rescue staff believes people have the right to access healthy and nutritious food, regardless of their socioeconomic status, Dansky said. The way the program is structured helps them deliver perishable foods to people in the community.

“That’s our main focus,” Dansky said. “We want to distribute healthy food that’s harder to obtain if you’re living with lower income.”

The nonprofit last year launched a program called Fresh Food Connect, which allows home gardeners to donate produce from their homes and community gardens, too. Although more than 90% of the nonprofit’s donations come from grocers, Dansky said, this program allows them to diversify Boulder Food Rescue sources, invite more community members to participate and secure fresher produce.

“It is smaller scale,” Dansky said. “The reason it’s of interest is because it creates a diversity in terms of sourcing food donations, and it also allows us to decentralize both our food sourcing and our food distribution.”

On Monday, Sunny Shaughnessy and Nirja Meeker were among the volunteers helping to distribute food at Mapleton Mobile Home Park, one the Boulder Food Rescue’s sites. Both are residents who volunteer to help their neighbors access more fresh produce. They pick up the produce from Sprouts and bring it to a central location in the neighborhood. Delivery days are Saturdays and Mondays.

Tables in the community’s wash house on Monday were stacked with heads of lettuce, containers of kale and boxes of bell peppers, strawberries and pears.

“Food is a basic right, as far as I’m concerned,” Meeker said of her decision to volunteer.

Shaughnessy said that, sometimes, residents come ahead of a delivery to sit together, talk and meet new neighbors.

“They wouldn’t have met each other before,” she said. “It’s great.”

Meeker added that, through Boulder Food Rescue, people try new vegetables they would not have otherwise spent money on or felt brave enough to try.

“People are swapping recipes,” she said. “They’re trying to figure out what in the heck that thing is. It’s been a community builder that way, and it’s really added to peoples’ diets as well.”

View more on Boulder Daily Camera

Boulder Food Rescue hits milestone of redistributing 3 million pounds of food

No-Cost Grocery Program Recipe Book

Boulder Food Rescue · Jun 14, 2019 ·

BFR’s No-Cost Grocery Program Participants (the people who organize food redistribution in their communities) created a recipe book using food commonly found in food rescue deliveries. It was created to help other participants of our programs to have fun recipes for using BFR food.

We are accepting donations if you’d like to add this to your cookbook collection, for a sliding scale between $25-45. Once you donate, send us an email at [email protected] and we will send one your way!

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Rescued recipes

Spiral-bound community cookbooks dish usable recipes in the digital age

John Lehndorff

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June 13, 2019

If you have a recipe you cherish, one that you’ve saved because you know it works, chances are you didn’t find it in The Joy of Cooking, Julia Child’s volumes or any of the food sections I’ve edited since 1985. You might have gotten it from a relative but they probably found it in the most common recipe source for American home cooks for decades: spiral-bound community cookbooks. I have some of my mother’s recipes because she contributed them to community cookbooks when I was a kid.

Spiral-bound matters a lot because those books lie flat on the counter when you are cooking. I have hardbound cookbooks that I have to use a 5-pound hand weight to hold open.

Over the years I’ve collected every community cookbook that has come my way, mostly from the Boulder area but also from across Colorado. Many were efforts to raise money for hospitals, diseases, churches, schools and other causes, and the recipes came largely from women.

The recipe names are often very plain or attributed to a relative. I have Mother Barbara’s Rice Casserole in a collection of recipes from the Boulder Valley Women’s Health Center in 1987, Shirley Crowfoot’s Concord Grape Pie in the Shakespeare Festival’s 1998 cookbook, and my very own Happy Family Grilled Salad included in Meals on Wheels’ 1991 Tastefully Boulder.

Eventually, I’ll donate the collection to a museum because the recipes represent valuable historical documentation unavailable elsewhere. They tell you who was cooking and how they actually cooked at the time versus a historian’s account.

There used to be dozens of these books available in the Boulder area, but they have virtually disappeared. They’ve been replaced by digital equivalents like allrecipes.com, where the recipe of the day on June 11 was Skinny Broccoli Mac and Cheese. Fewer people have cookbooks and recipes that they own. They, like me, simply Google “marinara.”

However, I’m happy to have a new addition, the wonderful new Boulder Food Rescue Recipe Book. The collection features 55 recipes in English using fresh produce items saved by Boulder Food Rescue (BFR) from stores and delivered by bicycle to the community. Flip the book over and it’s the same recipes in Spanish.

The recipes come from BFR staff and members, and staff of Boulder Housing Partners, which organizes food redistribution in its network of housing units, food pantries and preschools, such as New Horizons and the Family Learning Center. Among the participants are recent immigrants from Peru, Mexico, Costa Rica and Morocco.

It’s one thing to collect still edible produce from eager donors like Lucky’s Market or Alfalfa’s Market. It’s quite another to figure out how to turn a case of fresh eggplant, kale, zucchini, leeks, Swiss chard, artichokes or beets into dinner tonight.

“We don’t control the produce we receive. We sometimes get high quantities of vegetables and fruits that are not common in certain cultures,” says Hayden Dansky, executive director of BFR.

Dansky says the recipes in this collection are, in part, the answers the cooks devised and were passing among themselves. The just-released volume features tested recipes for everything from Spicy Roasted Fennel and Carrots to Potato Salad with Chicken to Green Plantain Ceviche. The dessert section includes Chocolate Zucchini Squares and Mango and Strawberry Smoothies. There are classics like the Tomatillo Salsa from Jesus Rosales, which uses fresh jalapeno, avocado, cilantro, white onion and garlic.

The Boulder Food Rescue Recipe Book is available to the public and ideal for any cook that is trying to use more fresh produce or is facing similar vegetable dilemmas as a member of a local farm CSA. The nonprofit organization is accepting donations on a suggested sliding scale of $25 to $45. For ordering information: boulderfoodrescue.org/recipebooklaunch.

If your Boulder or Colorado organization still offers a printed, spiral-bound recipe collection, let me know at: [email protected]

Understanding Food Insecurity

Boulder Food Rescue · Jun 11, 2019 ·

“Understanding Food Insecurity”

Written by guest blogger, Brianna Nash

This is one example of food insecurity. In a mid-size, affluent college town like Boulder, many people never stop to consider that their next-door neighbors or fellow students may be unable to put food on the table. Widespread, the stigma that surrounds food insecurity is stapled to very low-income individuals and people experiencing homelessness. If someone needs food they must also be struggling in all other aspects of life, and so goes the unconscious shaming.

When you think about food insecurity what do you consider? What type of person do you think of? Reflect on this for a moment. Take your own situation into account. Have you ever struggled to make ends meet? Have you ever had to buy cheaper food or less food because you didn’t have enough money?

Increasingly, in university towns and cities across the United States, students are struggling to feed themselves. Likely the cause of many factors — such as rising tuition and rising rent — young people are unable to go to school AND pay for food. The same overarching issue has affected thousands of families across the Boulder County area for decades. Along with students, the increasing cost of living makes food inaccessible for many, let alone fresh and healthy food. It’s important to remember, “fresh and healthy” are perceived staples of what it means to live in Boulder. This staple carries with it a strong message of denial that many never actually speak about. It is very difficult to make ends meet for the average person in this part of Colorado.

There are more than 107,000 residents living in Boulder, and nearly 15,000 of them are experiencing some form of food insecurity. A large percentage of this number is children under the age of 18. Throughout the county, one in every eight people encounters food insecurity. It’s easy to assume that all the people sitting in your local Boulder coffee shop are able to go home and make a healthy meal for dinner. Statistically though, at least one or two of them may not be able to afford healthy and nutritious food.

The USDA defines food security as a person being able to “access enough food for an active, healthy life.” This access ranges on a spectrum of high to low food security — high meaning a person is able to afford healthy food at all times, low meaning a person’s lifestyle changes due to lack of food. It is important to remember that food insecurity can come and go in a person’s life. An individual may go for a long time being completely food secure, then dip into low security say, when they lose their job and need to shop at the food bank. Situations in people’s lives are constantly shifting. The way someone feeds themselves is arguably one of the first indications of when a situation is in flux.

It is largely assumed that if someone can’t afford healthy food then they can’t afford a nice phone, or take themselves out for coffee, or get their hair done. While this does stand true for many, the faces of food insecurity are incredibly varied, and cannot be defined in neat boxes. Boulder has one of the highest average meal costs in the nation, coinciding with being one of Colorado’s most expensive counties to live in. For individuals and families that have been completely priced out of the area, food may be the very last thing on their agenda.

Why go out for coffee then, you may ask. In a place like Boulder, one would imagine that to be a genuine question born in curiosity. But questions like that are the reason there is a stigma still surrounding food insecurity. There are a lot of people that simply cannot afford to eat here, but that doesn’t mean they should or have to deny themselves other things in life. Understanding food insecurity begins by taking a few steps back, reserving judgements, and opening up to the much larger picture — everyone needs to live and everyone is going to do it differently.

2017 to 2018: What We Learned. What We’ll Do.

Hayden · Jan 25, 2018 ·

I recently caught up with Hayden Dansky, the Executive Director of BFR, to find out where BFR has been this last year and where it is going in 2018.

2017 is over. 2018 is here. While many of us are happy to usher out the old year with its turbulent politics, we should take a moment to celebrate our victories. Boulder Food Rescue fought hard in 2017 for a just food system. They’re taking what they learned and pushing even harder in 2018.

Each year, BFR works towards community enlightenment while diverting fresh foods from going to waste. Boulder Food Rescue continues to grow, shedding light on food inequities while working tirelessly to reduce waste while providing fresh foods to those who would otherwise go without. They have, and always will take a community-minded approach to combating the causes of hunger.

Hayden Dansky, Director of Boulder Food Rescue — Hayden Dansky

Food access and hunger are part of a large, systemic problem. When the world produces enough food to feed every human being, as it already does, why then is hunger an issue? The lack of a just and healthy food distribution system is a systemic issue built into our current economic and political models. They’re ingrained, and they’ll be tough to change. But we’ll get more into the causes of hunger as well as the complex web of social constructs surrounding it in future posts.

For now, let’s recap 2017 and see what’s in store for 2018. BFR is working to address root causes of hunger through both action and education. Can we have one without the other?

What has BFR been up to in the last year?

In the last year, BFR has been working on understanding the barriers to food access in our community. We have been working with food-insecure individuals to understand their experiences getting healthy food, and how they want to participate more in their food access systems. We have been specifically working more with Spanish-speaking communities and added a full-time Spanish-speaking recipient coordinator to our team to collect meaningful feedback and better support the communities we work with. We have also added a food donor coordinator to our team to work closely with our retail partners and improve our food waste education and outreach at stores.

What goals does BFR have for the coming year (2018)?

We are about to launch a new program called Fresh Food Connect, where home gardeners can donate excess produce and we will come around to pick up from their homes. This will allow us to increase healthy and local food donations and increase our produce distribution to low-income communities and pre-schools.

What events were successes? Would you have done anything differently?

We had a successful Forward Food Summit hosted in partnership with Denver and Colorado Springs Food Rescue and are planning to host our 5th FFS this year again in Denver in April. The Forward Food Summit is a front-range food rescue collaboration and is a social justice conference focused on food systems and community-driven work. This coming year we will change the setup of the space to be more conducive to small groups and peer-learning.

What have you learned from this past year that you’re going to apply to this coming year?

We have learned A LOT about the experiences of food insecure individuals in Boulder, across and between different demographics and communities. We’ll act on what we have learned by working with nonprofits to better incorporate the feedback and volunteerism of food-insecure individuals accessing resources. We’re producing reports to break down how nonprofits can best serve their communities and be community-based.

Any numbers or statistics you’d like to share on growth and impact?

Quantifiable growth:

We have redistributed 555,702 pounds of food this year so far (and it’s not over!) Last year we ended the year at 505,197, so we already have a significant increase in pounds delivered.
Number of no-cost grocery programs went from 15 to 19
Staff team went from 4 to 7

What is the state of hunger in Colorado and regionally?

1 in every 6 people is food insecure, meaning they don’t have access to healthy foods, or they don’t know where their next meal will come from. Sometimes it means that they may make sacrifices in their life, like not being able to pay for a phone bill to put food on the table.

Because it affects families, the statistic is even harder for children. 1 in every 5 children are identified to be food insecure. They often eat at schools but struggle to eat at home on weekends.

This is true for Colorado and across the US. Food access looks different in different places because barriers to getting food may be different between cities and rural areas, but the number of people it affects is similar.

Boulder Food Rescue Bike Volunteer

What can individuals do to help?

If anybody wants to start a food rescue in their city or area, we are happy to help. We have a start your own food rescue guide you can find and download for free on our website. If you don’t have time to start your own food rescue, donating monetarily significantly helps us do our work! We have a local impact in Boulder but are also building resources to support food rescues across the country! Every bit helps.

Anything else readers should know to catch them up with what BFR’s been up to?

Food Rescue Alliance is our international peer-learning network that supports food rescues across the country, gives resources and trainings to people doing this work in their communities locally, and supports our resource sharing and direct consulting. Check it out here: boulderfoodrescue.org/food-rescue-alliance

Food Waste Audit: Why Retailers Don’t Donate

Hayden · Jul 15, 2016 ·

By: Devon Reynolds

BFR45 If you haven’t checked out the Boulder Food Waste Audit yet, now’s your moment! It’s a study released by the Boulder Food Rescue (BFR) in collaboration with researchers at CU Boulder. It investigates the impact of current food recovery operations in Boulder; perceptions of food donation among city grocery stores, restaurants, and cafés; and the potential for rerouting more food away from the trash and onto the table.

This week, in Part 3 of our blog series on the Food Waste Audit, we’re looking at why food retailers don’t donate, and what it would mean for Boulder if they did. The surveys in the Food Waste Audit show that 40% of grocery store employees believe their companies could do more to reduce food waste, including donating more food. Meanwhile six of Boulder’s largest grocery stores don’t donate at all. What is preventing these food retailers from making donations of the food that they end up throwing away?

Apparently, it is concern for the image of the stores, a reasonable fear in a highly competitive market. 30% of those surveyed said that their organization might choose not to donate food because of liability concerns and 7% said their organization might choose to avoid donations because of harm to brand image. Because the food donated, especially produce, would likely have imperfections, there is a fear that the donations would be considered representative of the quality of food the store sells.

As far as the liability concerns, there is great news for those concerned. The BFR legal team did a comprehensive review of liability concerns to help potential donors understand the protections in place, and found the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act. Passed in 1996, it protects food donors from liability excepting cases of gross negligence. Its broad protections mean that grocery stores can send along their food in good faith.

Addressing this major worry with grocery stores could revolutionize food donation in Boulder. The Food Waste Audit estimates that at least 210,000 pounds of food are being discarded at the six locations that are not currently participating in food recovery. This is potentially equivalent to 187,499 meals!

As we mentioned earlier in this blog series, there is huge potential for reducing food insecurity in Boulder through donating the food that we are tossing into the trash right now. The Audit reminds us of the power changes in our behavior around food could have: “…there is likely more than enough good food being discarded in Boulder and Broomfield counties to meet the caloric needs of all of the food-insecure individuals in the area.”

The Boulder Food Rescue and other food recovery organizations in Boulder are working to streamline the donation process so that food goes to hungry mouths, not landfills. We’re all a part of this system.

What do you think you can do to turn things around?

For more from this series, check out Part 1, which gives an overview of the Audit’s findings. Part 2 takes a look at what’s causing waste at restaurants, and gives you some suggestions of how to change your behaviors to make a difference.