Food Forward Inc.
Harvest Food. Fight Hunger. Build Community.
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Programs and results
What we aim to solve
USC Dornsife reports indicate that 25% of Los Angeles households – and nearly 40% of the county’s low-income households – experienced food insecurity in 2022, a rate that continues to rise as COVID-era expansions to nutritional aid programs continue to expire. Communities without consistent access to healthy foods increasingly replace fresh fruits and vegetables with less expensive and more readily available alternatives that are less nutritionally dense and exacerbate poor health outcomes. At the same time, Californians produce more than 6 million tons of food waste annually, much of which is perfectly edible, fresh produce. This waste produces methane as it decomposes in landfills, which exacerbates the effects of climate change that disproportionately impact vulnerable and historically underserved communities. Food Forward’s produce recovery operation bridges the gap between surplus fresh produce and people experiencing hunger while reducing the environmental impact of food waste.
Our programs
What are the organization's current programs, how do they measure success, and who do the programs serve?
Backyard Harvest Program
This Food Forward flagship program provides nutritious, local fruit to direct service agencies by conducting volunteer-driven picks on more than 600 fruit tree properties across Los Angeles and Ventura counties. At Backyard Harvest events, a small group typically picks fruit at properties with just a few trees, and larger volunteer groups harvest fruit at larger properties and orchards. Food Forward supplies all necessary tools for harvesting, as well as on-site guidance from staff or trained volunteer leaders. Harvested fresh fruit is usually picked up from the harvest site by a receiving agency immediately following recovery. Occasionally, volunteer leaders may transport boxes of produce to a predetermined agency within close proximity. Currently, 90 hunger relief agencies receive produce through Backyard Harvest.
Farmer's Market Recovery Program
Food Forward offers an organized, market-endorsed donation system for farmers wanting to help fight hunger with their unsold produce. This volunteer-driven program currently operates in 15 farmers markets: four in Ventura County and eleven in Los Angeles County, benefitting more than 40 local direct service agencies. Volunteers collect surplus produce from farmers market vendors in the last 30-60 minutes of each farmers market, weighing and cataloging the vendors’ donations. The Farmers Market Recovery program enables Food Forward to serve midsize hunger relief agencies with a diverse sampling of produce on an extremely consistent basis. Last year, Food Forward worked with 180 farmers who donated their excess produce at farmers markets.
Wholesale Produce Recovery Program
The program operates out of the Produce Pit Stop warehouse located in Bell, CA, which opened in June 2019. The Wholesale Recovery Program staff collects surplus produce with five 24-foot box trucks, from the downtown Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market and from other surrounding commercial produce vendors. Surplus produce is also delivered to the Produce Pit Stop by produce donors who often drop off produce directly, as well as third-party trucks that Food Forward hired to pick up available truckloads of surplus produce. Food is arranged into mixed truckloads of fruits and vegetables, which are sent out to agency partners in the region to distribute to clients.
Where we work
External reviews

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Our results
How does this organization measure their results? It's a hard question but an important one.
Pounds of fresh produce distributed to social service agencies
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Population(s) Served
Families, Economically disadvantaged people
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Increasing
Number of public events held to further mission
This metric is no longer tracked.Totals By Year
Type of Metric
Output - describing our activities and reach
Direction of Success
Holding steady
Context Notes
In 2022, Food Forward hosted an average of 166 volunteer food rescue events per month.
Our Sustainable Development Goals
Learn more about Sustainable Development Goals.
Goals & Strategy
Learn about the organization's key goals, strategies, capabilities, and progress.
Charting impact
Four powerful questions that require reflection about what really matters - results.
What is the organization aiming to accomplish?
Food Forward fights hunger and prevents food waste by rescuing fresh surplus produce, connecting this abundance with people experiencing food insecurity, and inspiring others to do the same. By recovering surplus fruits and vegetables to distribute to nearby hunger relief organizations, our community-based recovery programs educate homeowners, small farmers, and our dedicated corps of volunteers about food insecurity, inspire social consciousness about the local food ecosystem, and promote shared ownership in our mission for change. At the wholesale level, our staff build dock-level relationships with growers and distributors to amplify the business case for integrating produce donations into their business model, funnel built-in surplus to communities in need, and mitigate the climate impacts of landfilled fruits and vegetables. And, with reliable food distributions from Food Forward, our network of hunger relief partners can focus their resources on their clients’ other needs, including job and housing searches, child care, health care, and rehabilitation services. In this way, our food recovery efforts both address immediate needs and support long-term improvements in community wellbeing.
What are the organization's key strategies for making this happen?
Food Forward’s Community Programs organize thousands of volunteers annually to participate in picks and gleans that recover surplus fruits and vegetables for local hunger relief organizations across LA and Ventura counties. The Backyard Harvest program conducts volunteer-driven picks on more than 600 fruit tree properties annually – from small backyards with a handful of trees to private orchards and large estates. The Farmers Market Recovery program is a market-endorsed donation system for farmers wanting to help fight hunger with their unsold produce; it currently operates in 15 farmers markets and benefits more than 50 local direct service agencies annually.
The Wholesale Recovery program, our largest program by recovery volume, rescues truckloads of surplus fruits and vegetables from the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market and other regional commercial distributors. At our warehouse in Bell, staff arrange pallets of this surplus into mixed truckloads tailored to each agency partners’ capacity and quickly distribute them to our partners to share with the communities they serve.
Food Forward’s produce is delivered to more than 250 hunger relief partner organizations across more than 300 distribution sites annually to provide to their beneficiaries free of charge. Our partners span the social services sector and provide nourishing food boxes, supply after-school snacks, distribute produce through pantries and free markets, and prepare healthy meals for individuals and families across Kern, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties.
What are the organization's capabilities for doing this?
Food Forward is the nation’s largest independent, urban-based gleaning organization dedicated exclusively to bringing healthy, fresh produce to communities experiencing food insecurity. The organization spent most of 2022 investing in the systems and staff necessary to make its COVID-era expansion a sustainable endeavor in the long term. We increased the overall capacity of our food distribution hub in Bell, upgraded our data management tools and workflows to help tailor produce pick-ups and streamline communications with our partner organizations, and recruited dozens of volunteer leaders to help rescue and distribute more fresh food than ever before.
Food Forward also remains committed to financial sustainability as its programs continue to grow. The organization has successfully ended with a net positive financial position in each of its 14 years of operation through strong cost management and fundraising efforts. Food Forward’s sustainable income profile includes long-term relationships with foundation supporters, a growing individual giving program, corporate grants and partnerships, fundraisers and special events, and government grants supporting food waste prevention. In recent years, Food Forward has attracted new support from a growing base of institutional and individual supporters, and the Board of Directors is committed to investing in strong fundraising and finance teams.
What have they accomplished so far and what's next?
Since rapidly expanding its programming in 2020 in response to the pandemic, Food Forward has consistently recovered over 60 million pounds of produce in each of the last three years. In 2022 alone, the organization rescued and distributed more than 72 million pounds of fresh produce to its network of hunger relief partners to share with communities experiencing food insecurity. Since 2009, the organization has diverted more than 340 million pounds of fresh, nutritious fresh fruits and vegetables – nearly 2 billion servings – from landfills to its partner organizations and prevented the emissions of over 300,000 metric tons of CO2-equivalent from entering the atmosphere.
In its next stage of growth, Food Forward will accelerate its impact by building new relationships and infrastructure to recover and distribute 270 million pounds of produce in 2023-2025, nearly equal to the volume of fruits and vegetables distributed in its first 14 years. Through this large-scale intervention in the food system, Food Forward will have a transformative effect on how we can address food insecurity, limit food waste and its environmental impact, and build healthier communities.
How we listen
Seeking feedback from people served makes programs more responsive and effective. Here’s how this organization is listening.
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How is your organization using feedback from the people you serve?
To identify and remedy poor client service experiences, To identify bright spots and enhance positive service experiences, To inform the development of new programs/projects, To strengthen relationships with the people we serve, To understand people's needs and how we can help them achieve their goals
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Which of the following feedback practices does your organization routinely carry out?
We collect feedback from the people we serve at least annually, We take steps to get feedback from marginalized or under-represented people, We aim to collect feedback from as many people we serve as possible, We take steps to ensure people feel comfortable being honest with us, We look for patterns in feedback based on people’s interactions with us (e.g., site, frequency of service, etc.), We engage the people who provide feedback in looking for ways we can improve in response, We act on the feedback we receive, We tell the people who gave us feedback how we acted on their feedback, We ask the people who gave us feedback how well they think we responded
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What challenges does the organization face when collecting feedback?
We don't have any major challenges to collecting feedback
Financials
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Operations
The people, governance practices, and partners that make the organization tick.
Connect with nonprofit leaders
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- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
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Connect with nonprofit leaders
SubscribeBuild relationships with key people who manage and lead nonprofit organizations with GuideStar Pro. Try a low commitment monthly plan today.
- Analyze a variety of pre-calculated financial metrics
- Access beautifully interactive analysis and comparison tools
- Compare nonprofit financials to similar organizations
Want to see how you can enhance your nonprofit research and unlock more insights? Learn More about GuideStar Pro.
Food Forward Inc.
Board of directorsas of 12/01/2023
Rob Valencia
Neil Haltrecht
Rick Nahmias
Founder/CEO of Food Forward
Christy Chin
Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation
Jedd Gold
Artkive
Jason Crayne
Criteria
Rob Valencia
Attorney
Betty Zamorano-Pedregon
Child Care Resource Center
Mark Rhein
Glaukos Corporation
Jeff Harris
JB Harris Consulting
Shari Leinwand
Foundation Trustee
Brian Lazarus
Ziffren Brittenham, LLP
Donella Wilson
GHJ
Cindy Lee
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Board leadership practices
GuideStar worked with BoardSource, the national leader in nonprofit board leadership and governance, to create this section.
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Board orientation and education
Does the board conduct a formal orientation for new board members and require all board members to sign a written agreement regarding their roles, responsibilities, and expectations? No -
CEO oversight
Has the board conducted a formal, written assessment of the chief executive within the past year ? Yes -
Ethics and transparency
Have the board and senior staff reviewed the conflict-of-interest policy and completed and signed disclosure statements in the past year? Yes -
Board composition
Does the board ensure an inclusive board member recruitment process that results in diversity of thought and leadership? Yes -
Board performance
Has the board conducted a formal, written self-assessment of its performance within the past three years? Yes
Organizational demographics
Who works and leads organizations that serve our diverse communities? Candid partnered with CHANGE Philanthropy on this demographic section.
Leadership
The organization's leader identifies as:
Race & ethnicity
Gender identity
No data
No data
Sexual orientation
No data
Disability
No data
Equity strategies
Last updated: 07/07/2023GuideStar partnered with Equity in the Center - an organization that works to shift mindsets, practices, and systems to increase racial equity - to create this section. Learn more
- We review compensation data across the organization (and by staff levels) to identify disparities by race.
- We ask team members to identify racial disparities in their programs and / or portfolios.
- We employ non-traditional ways of gathering feedback on programs and trainings, which may include interviews, roundtables, and external reviews with/by community stakeholders.
- We have long-term strategic plans and measurable goals for creating a culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.
- We seek individuals from various race backgrounds for board and executive director/CEO positions within our organization.
- We have community representation at the board level, either on the board itself or through a community advisory board.
- We help senior leadership understand how to be inclusive leaders with learning approaches that emphasize reflection, iteration, and adaptability.
- We measure and then disaggregate job satisfaction and retention data by race, function, level, and/or team.
- We engage everyone, from the board to staff levels of the organization, in race equity work and ensure that individuals understand their roles in creating culture such that one’s race identity has no influence on how they fare within the organization.