EXTRAFOOD.ORG

ExtraFood is the only company that rescues excess fresh food from any Marin organization – such as grocery stores, schools, and farmers’ markets – and immediately delivers it to nonprofit partners serving our community’s most vulnerable children, adults and families, 365 days a year and free of charge.

Our staff locates food donations that match our safety net partners’ needs – fresh produce, prepared food, dairy products, eggs, meat, packaged goods, and baked goods – and our volunteers (or staff drivers in our refrigerated vehicles), dispatched online and by text message, pick up and immediately deliver the food. We focus our deliveries in the areas of greatest need, especially the “food deserts” of the Canal, Marin City, and West Marin, where residents lack sufficient access to healthy, fresh, affordable food.

We're reaching more than 8,000 vulnerable people every month with deliveries of nutritious, fresh food, with priority given to healthy proteins and prepared foods, dairy products, fresh fruits and vegetables, and whole grains.

ExtraFood continues to receive far more requests for food than we have supply. To accelerate towards the objectives of ending food waste and hunger in Marin, our immediate goal is to make food recovery a way of life in our county: to enroll every available food donor in our program, and to capture every available pound of excess fresh food for the vulnerable children, adults, and families of our community. To that end, we are growing our food recovery program:

• Increasing staff time devoted to increasing our food donation base, prioritizing healthy proteins including prepared foods and dairy products; fresh fruits and vegetables; and whole grains.
• Expanding staff driver hours in our refrigerated vehicles to augment our quickly-growing volunteer team. This enables ExtraFood to pick up larger donations and extend our range to such underserved areas as the West Marin coast.
• Recruiting more volunteers, expanding our technology platform, and increasing support staff hours to handle a much larger number of food pickups and deliveries.
• Continuing to create new food programs with our nonprofit partners, expanding the safety net to reach more people in need where they live, work, and study.

And, through our Community Meals program, we are using the excess capacity of our restaurant and caterer partners to give freshly-made meals to people in need -- 80,000 meals during the pandemic -- help keep food-service workers employed, and help keep restaurants and caterers afloat during this challenging time.

Working together, we can reach the day when all in our community have the food they need.

ExtraFood is solving hunger differently:

Leading a movement to transform Marin's food system: from wasting food to donating it.

Sharing the abundant resources of our community -- high-quality fresh food and 60,000 hours of volunteer time so far -- with our community.

Using our nimble model to harness the power of our community and respond quickly to the most urgent of needs during disasters and crises.

Using the excess capacity of restaurants and caterers to give freshly-made meals -- some made with rescued ingredients -- to people in need.

Expanding our county-wide food recovery coalition as a renewable, long-term resource for Marin.

ExtraFood was founded on a vision:

A vision of food justice: That everyone, everyone in our community should have the food they need.

A vision of climate action: That food waste and its massive harm to our planet must end.

And a vision of community: that by building a living, growing coalition of people and partners, we can get there.

Food waste and hunger, in Marin, are solvable problems.