Tour Cultivate Food Rescue's cold storage warehouse

 

SOUTH BEND, Ind.-- Thursday is the biggest annual fundraiser for Cultivate Food Rescue, Taste of Hope. The local nonprofit rescues and redistributes food that would otherwise go to a landfill.

Food waste is a big problem in our country, and so is food insecurity. Americans throw away 120 billion pounds of food each year, according to the FDA, 80 percent of that is perishable, like meat and produce. Meanwhile, one in five kids does not get three square meals a day.

Jim Conklin is a self-proclaimed numbers guy, formerly an accountant, but helped start Cultivate Food Rescue in 2016.

"Every food business will generally choose to have too much food, versus not having enough," Conklin said. "We just really need to build logistics to put food and hungry people together. So, I love puzzles, so the idea that we can feed hungry people by solving this puzzle locally is challenging but also very interesting, but really rewarding on the other side of that equation."

Cultivate gathers food that would otherwise go to a landfill and redistributes it, whether through local food pantries or their frozen meal backpack program.

"We've doubled our food rescue each and every year that we've been in business," Conklin said.

Cultivate's Director of Operations, Bob Herbert, gave ABC57's Annie Kate a tour of Cultivate's newest facility, a cold storage warehouse, allowing the organization to expand significantly.

One-third of the warehouse is refrigerated, set at 38 degrees. The loading docks empty directly into the refrigeration.

"The cushions outside of the dock bays seal the truck, so the refrigeration temperature stays in the building and isn't released to the outside," Herbert said.

There are two types of drop-offs rescued food and donated food.

"It's the pinnacle part of our mission, going to our local restaurants and retail establishments and picking up that they no longer have value for. It compromises the most labor-intensive part of our mission. Everything has to be sorted by food groups, tested to make sure it's okay, categorized, and then listed on our website for distribution," Herbert said.

"In this section of the warehouse, you can see pallets and pallets of food," Herbert continued. "Those are more donations, and those foods come in from warehouse distributors, big box stores, and things along that line. So we'll move that food in a pallet-type environment. Takes up 80% of our volume, but only 20% of our labor because everything is moved in volume."

The other two-thirds of the building's square footage is devoted to freezer space.

"Sitting at zero degrees, we can hold this food for a very long time," Herbert said. "We're not meant to be a warehouse though. This is a pass-through facility. So moving the food through here quickly is just as important as receiving it. We don't want to store food, we want to get it to the people who need it."

The nonprofit rescued a record two million pounds of food this year.

"This facility will allow us to grow that to 20 million pounds of food a year," Conklin said. "That will make a significant difference in food insecurity but also in the quality of food that our pantries provide."

To learn more about Cultivate Food Rescue, click here.