Greater Chicago Food Depository distributes food donated from supermarkets- Chicago Tribune

Greater Chicago Food Depository distributes food donated from supermarkets- Chicago Tribune
'Food rescue' program helps area pantries fight hunger while reducing food waste


The trove of food on the loading dock of a Countryside Jewel supermarket on a recent Friday morning would make many nutritious meals. Fresh bread and buns. Bags of spinach and carrots. And lots of meat straight from the cooler: loin steaks, ground turkey, chicken wings, sausage.

All of it would have been landfill-bound if not for the Greater Chicago Food Depository's food rescue program. Instead, by the end of that Friday, those groceries and much more perfectly edible food went to food banks across Chicago.

The rescue program, which counts Jewel as its biggest donor, is a nonprofit/corporate partnership that helps reduce the nation's mountain of food waste while helping to fight hunger. The food program resonates even more now as the numbers of unemployed continue to rise.

"Picking up the excess from supermarkets is important and valuable in that it puts food to use," said Jonathan Bloom, who runs Wasted Food, a Web site chronicling food waste issues.

Still, supermarket food rescue is only "a piece of the puzzle," he said. Food waste abounds from farms, where crops are sometimes plowed under when prices are low, to restaurants that serve gigantic portions to consumers who pitch their leftovers.

Efrain Reyes, a 46-year-old South Sider who works for the Greater Chicago Food Depository, crisscrosses the city in a truck daily, calling on several supermarkets. The holiday season is the busiest time of the year.

On a recent Friday, Reyes, driving a new truck donated by Charter One bank, pulled out of the food depository's Southwest Side headquarters at 7:02 a.m., headed for a Sam's Club in La Grange. He'd stop at seven more supermarkets on this day: one Food 4 Less outlet and six Jewels. Then he'd ferry the goods directly to four church-run food pantries on the South Side.

Reyes' early-morning stops yield a smorgasbord: various beef cuts, whole chickens, surimi (ground fish), shucked cold oysters, chilled pineapple slices, bags of lettuce, pies and other baked goods. "There's a certain date it has to be sold by, but it's still good food," he said.

The food Reyes picks up has reached its "sell by" date. That's a label many food retailers put on their products as a self-imposed quality assurance standard, said Miguel Alba, a spokesman for Jewel, the Chicago area's largest supermarket chain.

Though freshness declines after the sell-by date, many products will continue to remain nutritious and edible for an extended period, Alba said, and freezing items such as meat and baked goods can further extend their life.

Jewel donated 62 percent of the 6.1 million pounds of food distributed through the Chicago food rescue program in its most recent fiscal year. Dominick's, the area's second-largest grocery chain, doesn't participate in the rescue program, but it helps to support the depository through cash donations and food drives at its stores.

The depository operates eight trucks that visit dozens of supermarkets throughout Cook County. A similar, though smaller, food rescue program run by the Northern Illinois Food Bank serves the surrounding counties. Rescue programs thrive in cities across the country, as well on a national level through hunger-relief agency Feeding America.

They have plenty of food to pick up. Food waste per capita in the U.S. has been steadily increasing, according to a study published last month by researchers at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases in Bethesda, Md.

They found that from 1974 to 2000, food waste as a percentage of food supply rose from 30 percent to 40 percent, though it tailed off a bit through 2005, the most recent year covered in the study. That finding encompasses food lost at the production level, through retail channels and from consumer waste.

But U.S. Department of Agriculture data show that the loss at grocery stores alone can be significant. A USDA study released this year showed that in 2006, 8.4 percent of all fresh produce at supermarkets went to waste.

Landfills swell with food waste -- food scraps made up 12.7 percent of the 250 million tons of municipal solid waste generated last year in this country, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

And unlike paper, metal or glass, food is not easily recyclable. Only 2.5 percent of food waste was recycled -- and that includes composting -- while 55.5 percent of paper waste was recovered, according to the EPA.

Food rescue programs are effectively recycling efforts. And companies have economic and social incentives to participate in them, said Bob Dolgan, a food depository spokesman. "They get a tax break, and it's more efficient for them to donate to us and do some good than dispose of (waste food) themselves."

The rescue program provided about one-tenth of the 58 million pounds of food distributed by the Chicago food depository in its most recent fiscal year. The rest came from donations from the federal government, the Chicago International Produce Market (a wholesaler) and packaged-food makers, notably Kraft Foods and Sara Lee, both of which are based in the Chicago area.

As the supply of donations has grown, so has demand.



A USDA report released last month found that 14.6 percent of U.S. households had difficulty at some time during 2008 providing enough food for all their members. That was up from 11.1 percent in 2007 and was the highest level recorded since the USDA began collecting such data in 1995.

Since the USDA's 2008 survey, economic damage has only spread, as the U.S. unemployment rate rose from 6.6 percent in October 2008 to around 10 percent in October 2009. Lost jobs means lost money to buy food.

During the nine months ending in September, visits to food pantries supplied by the Chicago food depository soared 33 percent to 3.6 million. One of those food pantries is run by Cornerstone Church of Chicago on the Southeast Side.

"It's been hitting us really hard," Adraine Lloyd, coordinator of the church's food pantry, said of the recession.

Lloyd said the food rescue program meets a particular need because it includes so many fresh items. "Last week, we got a lot of meat," she said of a recent delivery from the food rescue truck. Sometimes fresh fish even shows up: "It's like, 'Oh my God, we got the fish.' "

Barbara Smith, who runs the food pantry and soup kitchen at Bryn Mawr Community Church on the South Side, said the food rescue truck "is showing up with items that are highly desirable." That includes fresh produce and, of course, meat.

"Meat is a top commodity," said Reyes as he drove from one Jewel store to another. "Everybody wants the meat."

mhughlett@tribune.com

Want to help?
--To learn about volunteering or donating food or money to the Greater Chicago Food Depository, call 773-247-FOOD (3663) or go online at chicagosfoodbank.org.

--Feeding America comprises a nationwide network of food banks, including the Northern Illinois Food Bank. Search for Illinois food banks at feedingamerica.org.

--The Living Room Cafe in Woodlawn and the Inspiration Cafe in Uptown serve restaurant-style meals to the homeless. To learn about volunteering, visit inspirationcorp.org.

--Other local organizations include the Chicago Anti-Hunger Federation,antihunger.org, and the Illinois Hunger Coalition, ilhunger.org.