Food Forward Inc.

In 2021, Food Forward will rescue over 40 million pounds (160 million servings) of fresh, local produce. Surplus fruits and vegetables rescued from backyards, orchards, farms, farmers markets, and wholesale produce vendors will reach two million food insecure individuals across eight Southern California counties.

Food Forward’s pattern of sustained organization growth over the last 12 years will continue in 2021. Innovations in produce distribution and the launch of an emergency expansion initiative in response to the COVID-19 pandemic enabled Food Forward to more than double produce distribution from 2019 to 2020. In 2021, Food Forward aims to maintain this increased capacity, with the help of additional staff, new produce recovery equipment, and an expanded warehouse space.

Food Forward focuses its efforts on three primary produce recovery programs:

Backyard Harvest - Recovers produce from 800 fruit tree properties in Los Angeles, Ventura, and Santa Barbara counties.
Farmers Market Recovery - Recovers produce from 25 farmers markets in Los Angeles and Ventura counties.
Wholesale Produce Market Recovery - Recovers produce from the 300+ wholesale produce vendors at the downtown Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market and across the region.

The produce recovered by Food Forward is delivered to over 325 hunger relief agencies, some of whom distribute to thousands of additionl local direct service agencies. Food Forward’s service partners provide nourishing food boxes, supply after-school snacks, distribute produce through pantries and free markets, and prepare healthy meals for food insecure individuals and families across Los Angeles, Ventura, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Imperial Counties. Our corps of incredible community volunteers provides Food Forward with the power to recover produce and connect it to our partners.

Food Forward will accomplish our capacity-building goals by recruiting and training additional volunteers to lead Backyard Harvest events, continuing to re-populate volunteer gleaning roles at Farmers Market Recovery gleans as it is safe to do so, and diversifying wholesale produce rescue streams through the Wholesale Produce Recovery program. We will invest in skilled program and management personnel, serve Los Angeles and Ventura County communities through 12 large-scale food hub distributions, and bolster produce distribution and volunteer management software solutions.

Food Forward’s innovative and efficient programs have a track record of success. With more than 12 years of food recovery experience, Food Forward has become the largest produce rescue nonprofit in Southern California. The work our staff has done to create a leading food recovery model – building our volunteer corps of 10,000 engaged community members, creating a custom software platform and portal unique to our produce rescue needs, establishing one-of-a-kind relationships with produce donors and mutually beneficial partnerships with robust, reputable nonprofits – has paid off. In 2020 alone, Food Forward rescued over 42 million pounds of fresh, delicious fruits and vegetables and donated this bounty to hundreds of hunger relief agency partners across Southern California. An additional 18 million pounds of produce were distributed through the 2020 USDA Famers to Families food box program in response to the coronavirus pandemic. All of this fresh produce was distributed to hunger relief agencies free of charge – saving our partners money and time spent procuring food. In this way, Food Forward impacts the entire hunger relief system of Southern California and helps to spur the shift towards a food system that offers, fresher food to food insecure individuals.

In the last 12 years, Food Forward has rescued over 120 million pounds (more than 480 million servings) of fresh fruits and vegetables. We prevented over 33,000 metric tons of CO2 equivalent from polluting the atmosphere, which is like removing 9,620 vehicles from the road for a year.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and its impacts on the economy and food system brought new challenges to our hunger relief work. Food Forward was quickly able to pivot operations, implement safety protocols, and launch an emergency expansion initiative in early 2020 to meet the rising need for fresh, free fruits and vegetables. Our ongoing pandemic response includes:

• Food Forward is continuing our emergency expansion initiative, launched in early 2020, which included doubling the Produce Pit Stop warehouse space, securing new equipment and loading docks, growing existing agency partnerships, hiring five new positions, and redeploying staff.

• Programs are focusing on increasing produce rescue diversification to stabilize the high level of food distribution. Last year, Food Forward rescued surplus produce from 355 wholesale vendors, 210 local farmers, and 800 fruit tree donors – a record for donor diversity that we will build on in 2021.

• Food Forward forged partnerships with over 160 new agency partners over the last year, and ultimately connected fresh produce to 325 hunger relief partners of all sizes across eight counties.

• The Wholesale Produce Recovery program remains the foundation of Food Forward’s emergency response, now distributing 1,000,000 pounds of food per week (double pre-pandemic capacity).

• The Sprout, a new extension of the Produce Pit Stop warehouse launched in July, is now operating four days a week, distributing 95,000 pounds to 50 agency partners on a weekly basis. In January, nearly 400,000 pounds of produce were distributed to hunger relief agencies via The Sprout – an all-time high.

• The Backyard Harvest program broke records in 2020, rescuing 475,000 pounds of local fruit despite a pause on group harvests. New “Solo Harvests” were highly successful, providing an ongoing way to pick fruit safely.

• The Farmers Market Recovery program has safely returned to 11 markets for weekly gleans, with local farmers donating generously. We recently broke the record for the largest-ever glean: 3,883 pounds!

• Food Forward will continue our 12 collaborative food hub distributions, with each providing 7,000-20,000 pounds of mixed produce to 8-20 local agencies on a weekly or bi-weekly basis.

As the food and agriculture systems face continued stressors, Food Forward will work more deeply and directly to increase access to nutritious, free food. The pandemic has exacerbated the existing inequalities in our food system, and there is incredible uncertainty ahead. Food Forward’s focus remains on meeting the increased need for consistently available, healthy food and contributing to our community’s resiliency in the years to come.