Author: Aubrey Moore

Funding Will Help the Nonprofit Expand its Food Rescue Efforts into Morris County

June 12, 2024 Saddle Brook, NJ – – Table to Table, New Jersey’s first food rescue organization, is the proud recipient of a $100,000 grant from Impact100 Garden State for its program, Food Rescue Heroes: Bridging the Gap Between Food Waste & Food Insecurity. The generous funding will allow the food rescue nonprofit, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, to expand its mission of rescuing food, reducing waste, and relieving hunger into Morris County, adding to its existing footprint of Bergen, Essex, Hudson, and Passaic counties. Food rescue efforts for this grant will be supported by Table to Table I-Rescue, the nonprofit’s popular volunteer-based app powered by Food Rescue Hero. To volunteer to become a Food Rescue Hero, simply download the Table to Table I-Rescue App by click here.

“We are over the moon with excitement and incredibly grateful to the generous members of Impact100 Garden State for choosing to make this investment in Table to Table’s mission,” said Heather Thompson, Executive Director, Table to Table. “We are eager to spread our wings into Morris County with our Table to Table I-Rescue App, and we look forward to welcoming Morris County partners and volunteers to our Table to Table family,” Thompson concluded.

Impact100 Garden State, an all-women, all-volunteer organization, pools member contributions to make high-impact grants. The collective giving group has donated more than $3.5 million to area nonprofits since it began grant-giving in 2013. This year, a record membership of 408 women allowed Impact100 Garden State to give four $100,000 grants for the first time.

Debbie Seme, President of Impact100 Garden State, said “Impact100 Garden State is thrilled to support the essential work of Table to Table and to continue our mission of making a significant impact in our communities. Our members are an energetic, caring, and remarkable group of women who have the opportunity to learn so much about the needs in our communities and to make a difference every year through our Impact100 Garden State grants. Congratulations, Table to Table!”

To help Table to Table in their mission to reduce food waste and address food insecurity in New Jersey, you can become a Food Rescue Hero by downloading the Table to Table I-Rescue App, offer your skills to volunteer in a variety of ways, or make a donation. Every dollar you contribute provides sources for the organization to rescue and deliver food for 10 healthy meals. For more information on Table to Table, visit www.tabletotable.org.

For 25 years, Table to Table has bridged the gap for local neighbors in need by reducing food waste, sustaining those who are struggling, and contributing to their better health outcomes. We recognize the vital role that fresh food plays in nourishing not only the body, but also the spirit and mind. At the same time, keeping quality food out of landfills creates a positive environmental impact.

What began in 1999 with one food rescue in a donated van has flourished to become an efficient and impactful operation and a force for change that—to date—has resulted in the rescue and delivery of enough food for over 311 million healthy meals throughout northern New Jersey. To mark their milestone anniversary, the nonprofit has set a goal of rescuing/delivering enough fresh food for 25 million meals this year, via its fleet of 6 trucks and volunteer-based app, Table to Table I-Rescue. Visit Drive for 25 for fun, easy and actionable ways to celebrate and drive impact!

About Table to Table

Table to Table (http://www.tabletotable.org), NJ’s first food rescue organization, collects fresh and perishable food that would otherwise be wasted and delivers it to organizations that serve people experiencing hunger in Bergen, Hudson, Essex, and Passaic counties in Northern NJ. We bring rescued fresh, nutritious food to 200+ partner organizations including social service organizations, pantries, shelters, fresh produce markets, and centralized distribution hubs. Food is provided free of charge. Through this work, we touch families, children, veterans, and older adults, making good nutrition accessible while serving as a stimulus for other longer-term benefits. Table to Table raises all its own funds annually, and last year delivered enough food to provide over 23 million meals.

Credit: https://patch.com/new-jersey/easthanover-florhampark/classifieds/announcements/452936/table-to-table-nj-s-first-food-rescue-receives-a-100-000-grant-from-impact100-garden-state

June 12, 2024 Saddle Brook, NJ – – Table to Table, New Jersey’s first food rescue organization, is the proud recipient of a $100,000 grant from Impact100 Garden State for its program, Food Rescue Heroes: Bridging the Gap Between Food Waste & Food Insecurity. The generous funding will allow the food rescue nonprofit, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, to expand its mission of rescuing food, reducing waste, and relieving hunger into Morris County, adding to its existing footprint of Bergen, Essex, Hudson, and Passaic counties. Food rescue efforts for this grant will be supported by Table to Table I-Rescue, the nonprofit’s popular volunteer-based app powered by Food Rescue Hero. To volunteer to become a Food Rescue Hero, simply download the Table to Table I-Rescue App by clicking here.

“We are over the moon with excitement and incredibly grateful to the generous members of Impact100 Garden State for choosing to make this investment in Table to Table’s mission,” said Heather Thompson, Executive Director, Table to Table. “We are eager to spread our wings into Morris County with our Table to Table I-Rescue App, and we look forward to welcoming Morris County partners and volunteers to our Table to Table family,” Thompson concluded.

Impact100 Garden State, an all-women, all-volunteer organization, pools member contributions to make high-impact grants. The collective giving group has donated more than $3.5 million to area nonprofits since it began grant-giving in 2013. This year, a record membership of 408 women allowed Impact100 Garden State to give four $100,000 grants for the first time.

Debbie Seme, President of Impact100 Garden State, said “Impact100 Garden State is thrilled to support the essential work of Table to Table and to continue our mission of making a significant impact in our communities. Our members are an energetic, caring, and remarkable group of women who have the opportunity to learn so much about the needs in our communities and to make a difference every year through our Impact100 Garden State grants. Congratulations, Table to Table!”

To help Table to Table in their mission to reduce food waste and address food insecurity in New Jersey, you can become a Food Rescue Hero by downloading the Table to Table I-Rescue App, offer your skills to volunteer in a variety of ways, or make a donation. Every dollar you contribute provides sources for the organization to rescue and deliver food for 10 healthy meals. For more information on Table to Table, visit www.tabletotable.org.

For 25 years, Table to Table has bridged the gap for local neighbors in need by reducing food waste, sustaining those who are struggling, and contributing to their better health outcomes. We recognize the vital role that fresh food plays in nourishing not only the body, but also the spirit and mind. At the same time, keeping quality food out of landfills creates a positive environmental impact.

What began in 1999 with one food rescue in a donated van has flourished to become an efficient and impactful operation and a force for change that—to date—has resulted in the rescue and delivery of enough food for over 311 million healthy meals throughout northern New Jersey. To mark their milestone anniversary, the nonprofit has set a goal of rescuing/delivering enough fresh food for 25 million meals this year, via its fleet of 6 trucks and volunteer-based app, Table to Table I-Rescue. Visit Drive for 25 for fun, easy and actionable ways to celebrate and drive impact!

Credit: https://patch.com/new-jersey/morristown/classifieds/announcements/452899/table-to-table-nj-s-first-food-rescue-receives-a-100-000-grant-from-impact100-garden-state

Night of Distinction Was An Evening to Remember!

The prestigious NJFC “Night of Distinction” reception to honor industry leaders was held this past Wednesday, at The Palace at Somerset Park in Somerset, NJ. This year’s honorees, pictured above from left to right, were: Samer Rahman of Allegiance Retail Services, Neil Greenstein of Brookdale ShopRite and ShopRite of Newark and Stew Leonard, Jr. of Stew Leonard’s. The event, with this powerful slate of honorees, drew more than 500 guests, including prominent food industry executives across the region.

Moreover, the event works to make a difference. Calandra’s Bakery of Newark led the way in bringing in scholarship donations by contributing tickets for signature sporting events to the silent auction which helped NJFC raise almost $30,000 for its Educational Development Scholarship Program. Additionally, all leftover food from the event was donated to Table to Table, a food rescue organization located in Saddle Brook. More photos from this great event will be shared soon.

Credit: https://njfoodcouncil.com/

BY LINDA COPMAN MAY 13, 2024

Nearly two years ago, Linda (Edelman) Bradley ’84 founded the Poppyseed Project—an effort to rescue end-of-day bagels from the landfill and donate them to hungry neighbors.

Living in a bagel-rich community in northern New Jersey, Linda realized that local bagel shops needed help to rescue their unsold bagels at the end of the day. She organized a volunteer initiative to collect these bagels and deliver them to local food pantries. She has since teamed up with the Table to Table I-Rescue app to connect volunteer pick-ups and deliveries.

“Bagels bring smiles to adults and kids alike and we feel great about helping achieve that!,” Linda says.

Cornellians around the globe are sharing how they do good in communities big and small. Share your own story.

Credit: https://alumni.cornell.edu/snack-bar/the-good-cornellians-can-do-linda-edelman-bradley-84/

Essex County has more than one hundred free food distribution efforts year-round. Here is how that food gets from farms, food banks, and supermarkets to the tens of thousands who rely on it weekly.

BY KIMBERLY IZAR, MELISSA DIPENTO & SIMON GALPERIN ● ESSEX COUNTY, REPORTING ● JUNE 4, 2024

On any day of the week, at least a handful of food pantries or free food distribution efforts are underway in Essex County. 

Every Friday afternoon, dozens of families with children line a block of South Orange Avenue in Newark, N.J. Some brave the elements for nearly two hours to bring home food for the weekend ahead. As soon as the food distribution begins, guests quickly trickle into the Newark Water Coalition office and pack their bags with what’s available for the week – potatoes, carrots, bananas, tomatoes, onions, and jugs of filtered water.

Similar scenes unfold in neighboring Montclair, Orange, Irvington, Bloomfield, West Orange, and other areas of the county touched by one of seven food deserts.

But where does this supplemental food come from? What does it consist of? And is it addressing the needs of local residents?

The Jersey Bee produced this explainer to help people receiving food aid in New Jersey understand how their food is sourced and salvaged.

Who supplies supplemental food? 

Through a complex and sometimes patchwork system, hundreds of food providers in Essex County source and distribute food aid daily. 

Food banks or networks

Many local food assistance efforts source their food from larger food banks or networks with warehouses to store, sort, and distribute food products. At least half a dozen food pantries that The Jersey Bee spoke to said their largest food supplier was the Community Food Bank of New Jersey, which supports more than 800 community partners annually. 

Farms or gardens

Local farms or gardens often donate or sell produce to food banks, pantries, or rescue efforts. New Jersey’s “Jersey Fresh For All” program is one important source of food for the state’s food banks. However, restrictions limit which farmers are considered “socially disadvantaged,” how funds can be used, and which food banks producers can sell to.

Other local farms like Montclair Community Farms opt to grow the food themselves and directly partner with local food distribution efforts. 

Food rescue programs

Unlike large-scale food banks, food rescue programs focus primarily on perishable food. Volunteers and staff collect perishable food, pre-packaged meals, and other food items from suppliers and often deliver the food to nearby food pantries later that day.

Commercial food wholesalers and distributors 

Wholesale clubs like BJ’s and Costco, supermarkets, and large-scale distributors like Driscoll Foods are primary sources of food aid for many food assistance networks and programs. 

How is supplemental food gathered?

Food assistance is sourced through four methods: gleaning, purchasing, donation, and government allocation. 

Gleaning

Gleaning is when individuals collect excess food from farms, markets, restaurants, grocery stores, and other sources that would otherwise be thrown out. Programs like Table to Table, MEND, and Newark Working Kitchens are some of Essex County’s food assistance operations running local gleaning programs.

Purchasing

Many pantries and food banks purchase food themselves to keep their inventory stocked. The money comes from individual donations or private or government grants designated to improve food access or alleviate food deserts.

Robin Peacock, Executive Director of MEND, explained that while purchasing food gives the organization more room to be selective about the quality, the costs can quickly add up.

“We spend, on average, about forty to forty-five thousand [dollars] a month,” said Peacock. “Our focus is really three things: high quality, culturally relevant, fresh and health[y food]. Those three things are at odds with the traditional model, which is the boxed and canned goods that will have shelf stable life.” 

Sourcing locally is also a priority for MEND. Nearly two-thirds of their food purchases are from local or regional producers. Still, these items tend to be more costly. 

Donation

Food pantries may receive donations from supermarkets, food banks, wholesalers, food drives, and other sources. Community members or groups who host food drives can also donate to pantries. However, some mutual aid food efforts don’t qualify for major donations because they aren’t registered as a 501(c)3 nonprofit with the IRS.

Government allocation

The federal government purchases food directly from agricultural producers to distribute through food banks nationwide.

“Eggs, cheese, milk, fish, and grains come to us by the truckloads,” said Gleny Herlihy, Senior Director of Food Sourcing at Community Food Bank of New Jersey.

From small pantries to large food banks, many explained that utilizing all these methods is necessary to meet people’s needs and requires around-the-clock people power.

“It’s not one of those situations where one [strategy] fits all,” said Herlihy.

Another pantry organizer agreed, sharing that one food source simply isn’t enough. They said while they were grateful for donations from the food bank, it wasn’t sufficient to serve its hundreds of clients each week. 

“We get what [food banks] give us and then we purchase that extra pallet or two, whether it’s produce, eggs, cereal. Whatever it is, we make up the difference,” they said. 

What kind of food is gathered?

The short answer: it depends on what is available. 

While there is no standard pantry bag, most distribution efforts try to include a mix of produce, protein, bread, and primarily non-perishable items. Yet the quality of these items can significantly vary.

“Even gleaning from grocery stores is the stuff that’s about to expire. You know – the oranges that are looking pretty sad,” said Peacock. “We have volunteers that will go through it, but we try not to send it out if it’s not something we would pick…off the shelf.”

Heather Thompson, Executive Director of Table to Table, said her organization sources a type of food that’s hard to get: fresh produce. 

“When people do community food drives, what’s being collected [are] shelf stable things: canned foods, pastas, rice, beans, cereals,” said Thompson. 

Last year, more than 60 percent of the food Table to Table rescued was produce.

Ensuring food quality is increasingly more challenging, according to Herlihy, the Community Food Bank of New Jersey’s senior sourcing director. She said her team has doubled down on scrutinizing food ingredients.

“Sometimes when you look at ground meat, if you look at the ingredient carefully, you can see that there has been other additives to the meat,” said Herlihy.

Herlihy described one food vendor bid that included grounded turkey bones in their turkey meat.

“Now companies are getting creative, and they’re using different words, and it’s like ‘What does that mean?’”

Is this working?

This network of food providers aims to serve the one in nine residents in Essex County who don’t get enough food to feed themselves each week. 

However, sourcing food for a variety of dietary preferences, limitations, allergies, and health conditions can be challenging. The overwhelming majority of food pantries that The Jersey Bee spoke to said they could not make dietary accommodations for pantry guests.

“[Guests] have some options on maybe an item or two, but we’re really limited,” said one pantry organizer.

They also shared the challenge of responding to shifting client demographics.

One pantry organizer explained that the demographics of its clients are changing, and so must the kinds of food they distribute. They said their client demographics have shifted from primarily English-speaking Black residents to Spanish and Haitian Creole-speaking residents in the past few years. Many pantry organizers The Jersey Bee spoke to said language barrier have become one of their biggest hurdles.

Timing and other restrictions also inhibit food access. Most food pantries are only open for a few hours per week. And depending on the pantry, options are reserved for older adults, registered clients, religious congregation members, or residents who live in specific zip codes.

Thompson at Table to Table called the expectation that lower-income households should be happy with whatever they get “a great injustice.”

“Food isn’t just about filling our bellies. It’s not just about achieving a balanced diet,” Thompson said. “It’s also about celebration and comfort and culture and memory…that is the luxury and dignity that a lot of people do not get afforded when their choices are so limited.”

How much does the supplemental food system cost?

Feeding America notes that people facing hunger in New Jersey need an additional $540 million per year to meet their food needs.

The state of New Jersey spent nearly one-third of that figure on powering the state’s network of food banks and pantries in the 2023-2024 budget year.

For the 2024-2025 budget, New Jersey plans to allocate $201 million to its food aid system – just 0.3 percent of the $55.9 billion budget.

That amount doesn’t include money allocated by foundations, health departments, and other stakeholders trying to meet the need. 

Then there are also non-monetary costs to communities. 

In 2023, the Community Food Bank of New Jersey’s volunteers devoted nearly 88,000 hours to support their work. The food bank’s fleet of trucks drove about 390,000 miles. 

Table to Table’s more than 250 volunteers completed more than 6,000 food rescues in the same year. 

Unfortunately, pantry guests are likely to bear the most significant unaccounted costs. These include hours spent traveling and waiting for food, transportation costs, lost wages, as well as the negative health and economic impacts of food insecurity. Despite these costs, many food pantry guests say they are still grateful for their hauls, whatever they can get.

“We accept what they give us with humility,” said one Newark food pantry guest. “I wouldn’t be able to say I need more because it would just be egotistical of me. What they give is really good.”

Credit: https://jerseybee.org/2024/06/04/picked-up-food-from-a-food-pantry-heres-where-it-came-from/

Almost 2 million tons of food still goes to waste in NJ every year

May 28, 2024 | Jon Hurdle, Contributing writer

At CUMAC, a food pantry in Paterson, food donated by supermarkets that have decided they can’t sell it accounts for about half of the total given out to clients, and so represents a crucial component of its ability to feed an increasing number of food-insecure people.

In Franklin Township in Somerset County, the Franklin Food Bank is even more heavily dependent on produce, meats, dairy and dry goods that are “gleaned,” or rescued, from local food retailers, accounting for about 60% of the total.

Potential for Change

• More than 1.7 million tons of food went to waste in New Jersey in 2022, even as close to 1 million people were food-insecure.
• A number of programs in New Jersey are models for redistributing through food pantries items that would have been tossed out.
• Supermarkets donate fruits, vegetables, proteins, dairy and baked goods that are still safe to eat.

And at the Food Bank of South Jersey in Pennsauken, Camden County, the weight of food gathered from supermarkets rose by 17% in the first quarter of 2024 from a year earlier, as more food pantries regularly collected food donations from supermarkets that want to help feed the hungry while cutting food waste.

Across New Jersey, the emergency food network is increasingly reliant on food gleaned from supermarkets — and to a lesser extent farms — to supplement other major sources such as federal and state governments, the Community FoodBank of New Jersey, and a host of private donors.

“Our belief is that there’s enough fresh food for everybody, and our goal is to get that fresh food from where it is to where it needs to be, and to keep it out of landfills,” said Heather Thompson, executive director of Table to Table, a nonprofit that for the last 25 years has been collecting unwanted but mostly usable food from meal-kit companies, retailers, restaurants and other sources, and delivering it to food pantries.

But there is much still to gain, with close to 2 million tons of food continuing to go to waste each year, despite some promising practices available to get more food to families’ tables.

In this latest installment of The Change Project, NJ Spotlight News examines some of those models involving food gleaning and donation networks, their challenges and obstacles. Intricate and often complex, the stakes of hunger and food insecurity in New Jersey are significant.

Big challenges

“If we could actually get all of this food that’s going to be thrown away and is edible into the hands of people who need it, people would have enough food,” Thompson said. “It could be that simple but the logistics of it are very challenging.”

In 2017, New Jersey passed the Food Waste Reduction Act which aims to cut the waste by 50% from 2017 levels by 2030. In 2019, the Department of Environmental Protection published a draft of its plan to implement the law by cutting food waste by some 57,000 tons a year, or the equivalent of 2,200 loaded garbage trucks, to hit the target of some 742,000 tons less than the 2017 level by 2030.

In 2017, New Jersey passed the Food Waste Reduction Act which aims to cut the waste by 50% from 2017 levels by 2030. In 2019, the Department of Environmental Protection published a draft of its plan to implement the law by cutting food waste by some 57,000 tons a year, or the equivalent of 2,200 loaded garbage trucks, to hit the target of some 742,000 tons less than the 2017 level by 2030.

The state’s plan, finalized in October last year, includes forming partnerships with groups that are already working on the issue; educating the public on food waste, and reaching out to schools and business groups in the hope of enlisting their support.

The DEP has built a website showing how individuals can reduce their food waste; spread its aims on social media, and worked with the Association of New Jersey Recyclers and Sustainable Jersey to show towns how to cut food waste. It has also funded a Food Waste Tool Kit that shows K-12 schools how to cut the waste; how food-waste sources can connect with distributors of food that would otherwise be dumped, and how municipalities can measure the amount of food waste in their overall volume of trash.

The state’s 2030 target is roughly half the estimated 1.72 million tons of food waste that New Jersey generated in 2022, the latest year for which data is available, according to ReFed, a Long Island, New York-based nonprofit that monitors food waste nationally.

Food waste: The data

In New Jersey, Table to Table gleaned 23.2 million pounds of food in 2023, slightly below record-high totals in the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 but well above the 16.9 million pounds in 2019 and 14.2 million pounds in 2018. Its food-rescue operation is based on that of City Harvest, a New York City nonprofit, which inspired Table to Table by recognizing that there are millions of pounds of wasted food that could feed hungry people if there’s an efficient way of getting it to them while it’s still fresh and nutritious.

How donations get delivered

In one such program, donors include Wegmans supermarket at Hanover in Morris County, which supplies about 200,000 pounds of free food a year to the Interfaith Food Pantry Network in Morris Plains. Tim Lockwood, the market manager, said that even though giving the food away represents a financial loss, it’s built into the store’s business model, and the donations are driven by both humanitarian and environmental impulses.

“We know that there are people in our community that need the food bank, and that it has  thousands of clients,” Lockwood said. “If we’re able to help them, we try to do that.”

https://infogram.com/hurdle-change-gleaning-overall-1h0n25ooyj0nz4p

But that pantry, like all other recipients of gleaned groceries, must ensure that the food is safe, fresh and edible, and so throws out 20-25% of what it receives from supermarkets overall, although that rate varies widely between suppliers, said Carolyn Lake, executive director of Interfaith Food Pantry Network.

For example, if it receives a batch of lettuce that has been packed underneath bottles of cleaning fluid, the lettuce will be discarded for safety reasons, she said.

“It takes a lot of education on the part of the donor, and they are running businesses, so this is an extra step for them, and we recognize that,” Lake said.

‘Completely unpredictable’

The amount of rescued food totaled 152,000 pounds, or 26% of the Interfaith Food Pantry Network’s total in the first quarter of this year. That was almost double the 88,000 pounds, or 18% of the total, in the same period a year earlier, Lake said. The number of retailers working with the program rose to eight from five during that time.

Lake’s program for gleaning food is based on an app called Meal Connect published by Feeding America, a national hunger-relief nonprofit, which helps coordinate relationships between food-aid agencies and retailers. For example, the app may tell users that an agency is already collecting food from one supermarket three days a week, helping to ensure that no other agency tries to establish a relationship with that store.

Although Lake stresses her gratitude for the increasing amount of food she gets from supermarkets, she doesn’t rely on it when planning her network supplies because both its quantity and nature may vary.

“The difference between rescued food and that which we get from USDA and the  Community Food Bank of New Jersey is that rescued food is completely unpredictable,” she said. “We don’t know what we’re going to get from one day to the next, or whether it will be usable. When we plan the food to provide for our guests, we don’t plan anything that is rescued; it goes out as extras.”

Recipients of gleaned food know that they won’t be able to use all of it, and don’t want to spend scarce time getting rid of the portion they can’t use.

“You want to be known as the agency that says yes and can pick up that stuff at the drop of a hat, and can take quantity,” said Derek Smith, executive director of the Franklin Food Bank. “You also don’t want to be known as the agency that will come and take anything.”

The Community FoodBank of New Jersey, the state’s largest supplier of food aid, gleaned 37% of its 108 million-pound distributed total in the fiscal year that ended June 30 last year, said David Goldstein, vice president of operations.

“In food-banking, the world of donations is super-huge,” he said. ‘Partners want to donate the food; they know it’s going to folks who need it, so they work with us to get the highest-quality product.”

At the Food Bank of South Jersey, which supplies pantries in a four-county region, about 14% of food was gleaned last year, and that represented a 35% increase in that category from 2022, said Sarah Geiger, senior director of programs and services.

The gleaned food typically goes directly from a retailer to the pantry that distributes it, without going via the food bank’s warehouse. That leaves the food bank as a broker of the relationship rather than a supplier, and speeds the movement of often-perishable food to those who need it. “It’s a lot of relationship management,” Geiger said.

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Why supermarket donations are so valuable

Donations from supermarkets are especially valuable because they typically provide a range of foods that pantries need, she said. “We absolutely need all donation streams, and this one in particular is very helpful because it has built in a range of staple categories — protein, produce, dairy — and consistently. It ticks a lot of boxes for us.”

Other suppliers, too, are providing substantial and increasing food supplies to New Jersey’s food banks and their local distributors.

Hello Fresh, a Newark-based meal-kit company, supplies about 500,000 pounds of food a year to Table to Table for distribution to pantries. The donations represent about 2% of Hello Fresh’s food, but because of its high volume — the company ships about 350,000 boxes out of its Newark facility every week — the donation total is significant, said Jeff Yorzyk, the company’s senior director of sustainability.

If Hello Fresh did not donate its surplus food to Table to Table, it would be composted to make biogas or else sent to a landfill, although the company is “philosophically very opposed” to using landfills, Yorzyk said.

In Pittstown, Hunterdon County, America’s Grow-a-Row, a network of five New Jersey farms, gleaned about 300,000 pounds of food last year from supermarkets and farms, representing about 10% of the food it supplied to pantries and food banks. Last year’s total of gleanings grew 23% from 2022, said Chip Paillex, founder and president.

“We recognize that there’s a lot of food out there that’s going to waste so this is our opportunity to take a little bit of a dent out of that, and rescue food that would otherwise go in the trash or rot in the field, and give it to folks who need it,” he said. 

More resources

• New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection’s  Food Waste Reduction Plan
• Nonprofit ReFED’s Food Waste Monitor
• Community Food Bank of New Jersey’s website.

Credit: https://www.njspotlightnews.org

A big thank you to Rev. Dr. Sam Stone, Pastor of Trinity Presbyterian Church (left) and his wife, Sophie Stone, Co-Publisher of The Paramus Post (right), who stopped by to present a donation on behalf of Trinity Presbyterian Church to Heather Thompson, Executive Director of Table to Table (center).

The thoughtful contribution will allow Table to Table to reduce food waste and deliver enough food for 5,000 meals.

About Table to Table

Table to Table (http://www.tabletotable.org), NJ’s first food rescue organization, collects fresh and perishable food which would otherwise be wasted and delivers it to organizations that serve people experiencing hunger in Bergen, Hudson, Essex, and Passaic counties in Northern NJ. We bring rescued fresh, nutritious food to 200+ partner organizations including social service organizations, pantries, shelters, fresh produce markets and centralized distribution hubs. Food is provided free of charge. Through this, we touch a diversity of those in need, including families, children, veterans, and older adults, making good nutrition accessible while serving as a stimulus for other longer-term benefits. Table to Table raises all its own funds annually, and last year delivered enough food to provide over 23 million meals.

Credit: https://paramuspost.com/article.php/20240501161215357

In the spirit of Easter, Seton Hall Preparatory School in West Orange collected 15 hams, totaling 120 lbs., from its community to brighten Easter for local families in need. Volunteers from Table to Table, New Jersey’s first food rescue organization, collected and delivered the hams to MEND, a hunger relief network in Essex County, advancing health equity through collaborative, community-driven programming.

Table to Table is celebrating 25 years of impactful work, having rescued and delivered enough food for over 311 million healthy meals throughout northern New Jersey. To mark this milestone, the organization aims to rescue and deliver enough fresh food for an additional 25 million meals this year, using its fleet of six trucks and volunteer-based app. To support Table to Tables’s mission, visit tabletotable.org/donate.

Credit: https://issuu.com/vicinity/docs/01-76_essex_0524se_lr