Fruits and vegetables are one part of our diet for which it is reasonable to say: “more is better!” In the US, most consumers are offered a remarkably diverse, year-round supply of fresh produce options, and for those with busy lifestyles, there are many “fresh-cut” options.
That supply comes from five major source categories:
- Local farms
- Specialized growing regions within the US – e.g. California, Florida, the PNW…
- Off-season imports from the Southern Hemisphere during our winter
- Imports of crops that can only be grown in tropical climates
- Controlled environment farming (e.g. greenhouses, vertical farming facilities)
Each of these supply chains has its own set of practical and logistical challenges, including the weather, transportation delays, and variations in consumer demand. These challenges are exacerbated by the perishable nature of the products themselves. Even with careful planning to attempt to synchronize production, delivery and demand, there are inevitably times when certain items are oversupplied either at the wholesale or retail level. The worst case scenario is that potentially nutritious food with a significant pre- and post-harvest resource “footprint” ends up as waste.
Diverting potential food waste to food banks and other charitable organizations is a fairly common produce industry practice and something that wholesalers and retailers are fully willing to support. But dealing with intermittent, unpredictable situations isn’t central to the time-sensitive job responsibilities of those involved.
The Sharing Excess unit at the Hunts Point wholesale produce market
There is a new non-profit organization whose focus is on developing efficient ways to turn intermittent oversupply events into a resource for those who might not otherwise be able to afford fresh produce. It is called Sharing Excess and was founded by Evan Ehlers. While Ehlers was a student at Drexel University, he had a transformative experience through giving away unused meals from his student meal plan. Then, during a COVID-related shutdown order in Philadelphia in 2020, Ehlers, organized a team of fellow students and rescued enough food from 24 restaurants to feed 90 families for a week.
Sharing Excess founder Evan Ehlers and Operations Director Victoria Wilson
They went on to start Sharing Excess and have since expanded staffing and facilities and refined a critical role of logistics management dedicated to making timely connections between food industry players who have occasional excess supply and distribution organizations who have established links to people in need.
One of Sharing Excess’ temporary storage and staging locations
Sharing Excess has also developed the capacity to provide on-the-fly transportation or food gleaning as needed. They have reached a cumulative total of more than 45 million pounds of “rescued” food and are involved with over 500 food contributing food businesses and over 650 community distributor organizations.
Produce Industry Examples
Some excess produce at the Hunts Point Wholesale Produce Market
Most major urban centers have wholesale produce markets that receive the shipments from both domestic and international suppliers, maintain the cold-chain, and make the transfers to the retailers. That process includes both pre-set order fulfillment and “spot market” mechanisms which absorb many of the surges in supply or ways to back-fill something like a weather-related problem with a primary source. Stephanie Katzman, EVP of Katzman Produce, located in the Hunt’s Point Produce Market in the Bronx says that their message to retail customers is “if it grows, we’ll find it for you.” Even so, she says that there are still times when their customer base can’t absorb everything fast enough and they are relieved to be able to give that food a good home with the help of Sharing Excess.
While most fresh fruits and vegetables are field grown, there is an expanding segment broadly known as Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA). That ranges from hoop houses to greenhouses to highly controlled indoor environments known as “vertical farms.” One might expect that since these facilities are all designed to minimize or even eliminate weather as a variable, they wouldn’t be as prone to incidences of short-fall or excess production. In fact, the demand for their products is still variable because of the ups and downs of their field-grown competition or in consumer spending.
One of Eden Green’s CEA installations
Eden Green Technology is a CEA company based in Cleburne, Texas which has innovative growing facilities that are a hybrid between a greenhouse and a fully indoor vertical farm where they sustainably produce lettuce and herbs. They can precisely control temperature through a patented spot heating and cooling system, tightly control light and irrigation, and supplement the supply of carbon dioxide to support 328,000 growing spots on 1.5 acres in a year-round 24-to-28-day growing cycle.
The interior of an Eden Green vertical farming greenhouse installation
Eden Green’s CEO Eddy Badrina says that even with all this control, they choose to build in a 10% production buffer so that they are always able to fulfill not only their contracted supply but also their customer’s supplemental orders. They only feel comfortable offering that option knowing that when they can’t sell the buffer supply, they can give it to Sharing Excess. From October of 2023 through April 1, 2024, Eden Green has donated more than 57,000 pounds of food representing 45,000 meals through its partnership with Sharing Excess, bringing Eden Green’s total donations to over 420,000 pounds since opening its first commercial greenhouse in 2021.
As just one example of the sort of impact these donations can have, the following is a quote from a senior citizen with limited income that regularly benefits from the H.I.M. Food Bank which is connected to the Sharing Excess network. “The H.I.M. Food Bank always has milk, eggs and fresh produce. They provide fresh lettuce each time I visit, which helps me make fresh sandwiches and salads each day. I am on a limited diet for healthy reasons and lettuce and other fresh produce ensures I stay within my dietary restrictions. I suffered a stroke last year and have limited use of one of my right arms. Salads and sandwiches are easy for me to prepare and I can do so with the fresh produce I receive from H.I.M.. I appreciate the lettuce especially, as it is always fresh and I receive plenty to last me for a couple of weeks. “This is just an awesome thing”, she says, “I don’t know what people would do without it.”