Author: Tony Cook

Your visit to a local grocery store may seem like a routine, unimportant chore. That perfect strawberry, tomato or apple you select is made possible because different departments of your neighborhood store carefully maintain a standard for each product. But what happens when the bananas are too green, or the strawberries are too ripe? The product is stranded and without rescue would find its way to the landfill. Thanks to stores partnering with Second Harvest’s Grocery Rescue program, that nutritious food is shared with people facing hunger throughout the 26 counties in Eastern Washington and North Idaho served by Second Harvest.

The amount of stranded food available to be rescued varies by store; some have agencies pick up daily, others pick up once a week. Grocery Rescue is a quiet yet vital part of our food stream here at Second Harvest. Our most recent annual report shared that food donated through Grocery Rescue provides 12.6 million pounds of food to our network of 250 agencies. While this is an amazing story, there is more. Grocery Rescue increases the variety of food that local pantries and meal providers can share with neighbors. This means a food bank recipient has the ability to choose what they eat, just like they would while shopping at a retail store.  

Your local grocery store has been a partner with the pantries, meal programs and food banks of your community for years, each receiving an annual accounting of the meals they provided. Look for the updated poster in your neighborhood market, and you will be impressed!  One example of neighborhood impact is our longtime Grocery Rescue partnership between Trader Joe’s, Southside Food Pantry and Union Gospel Mission. Southside Food Pantry serves over 300 families a week, while Union Gospel Mission works to break the cycle of homelessness daily. Both benefit from the daily food donations from Trader Joe’s. Monthly donations total over 26,000 pounds and spike to over 33,000 pounds a month throughout the year. The high standards of neighborhood groceries change lives daily. 

This quiet partnership between agencies and neighborhood grocery also redirects over 12 million pounds of food from landfills that would potentially contribute to greenhouse gas emissions.  

Great food, strong partnerships, reduced waste, and human dignity — all empowered by a passion to provide you with a beautiful strawberry, tomato or other nutritious food. Thank you to all who make this possible! 

To see Grocery Rescue in action and learn how it started, please watch episode two of Jason Clark’s Hunger Crusade:
https://2-harvest.org/hungercrusade/.