By Tony Hicks –
Sometimes effective policy makers must break character to get to the bottom of issues. Even if it’s the bottom of a dumpster.
U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (MA-02), vice chairman of the House Hunger Caucus, was curious if a grocery store in his district was throwing away perfectly good food.
So he did a little congressional, fact-finding, dumpster diving.
“I went behind the store into the dumpsters, to look for what was in there – I was in a sports coat and a tie – and people came up to me and started yelling and saying ‘What are you doing? This is private property,’ the Massachusetts congressman told a conference room of about a dozen people Thursday at White Pony Express in Pleasant Hill.
“I said ‘I’m just trying to see what you have here: hummus.’ And as I was being scolded I said ‘Tell me why this is being thrown away.’ (The store employee said) ‘Well, we have this routine where every so many days, we just …’
“I said ‘Is it edible'” McGovern said. “If I eat this will I get sick? ‘No, it’s perfectly fine,’ he said. ‘But why are you doing this? (I said)'”
“‘Because it’s the rules.'”
McGovern’s story illustrated the need for White Pony Express, an eight-year-old, rapidly-growing organization dedicated to exterminating hunger.
Whereas food banks deal mostly in canned food, White Pony Express is about perishables and speed – as in, collecting perishable food from stores and restaurants every day (except Christmas), cleaning it, re-packaging it, and getting it back out the door to the Contra Costa County groups needing it.
The outfit has grown so efficiently that McGovern, from the other side of the country, spent nearly two hours onsite Thursday, collecting ideas “to see if they’re nationally applicable,” he said. The Democrat – also chairman of the House Rules Committee – was on the West Coast, gathering intelligence for next month’s White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition and Health.
The conference hasn’t officially been announced, but McGovern said he expects President Biden to make an announcement next week. Incredibly, McGovern said, it will be the first such conference since 1969. “The year we first landed on the moon.”
“It’s about food waste,” McGovern said. “Some communities are getting it right, some communities are getting it very wrong, and some are doing nothing.”
The small warehouse was busy Thursday, with trucks coming and going and volunteers cleaning and sorting fruit, vegetables, milk, eggs, and some deli meat. It quickly boxed and redirected to shelters, churches, food pantries, and other non-profits countywide.
“Volunteers make sure the food that goes out on the trucks is the same quality that they would feed their families,” Gary Bostick, the food rescue operations manager. “The sorting is done here, based on what destinations ask for, what’s culturally appropriate, (and) what people will eat.”
Word about the organization is getting out. It even helped the Vatican with a project.
“We have been sharing the model,” said Eve Birge, White Pony Express’ executive director. “We were in Mexico less than two months ago, helping a group there scale up a model similar to White Pony Express. And we’re creating an operations manual.”
White Pony Express has gone from four volunteers moving food in car trunks, to 400 volunteers and 17 paid staffers, moving about 14,000 pounds of food daily with 12 trucks through a 14,000-square-foot facility that’s no longer big enough.
The food recovery business is set to explode since California just enacted SB1383, a law requiring commercial edible food generators to have agreements with food recovery organizations.
It also mandates no less than 20 percent of edible food currently disposed of will be recovered for human consumption by 2025. The law isn’t just for hungry people: it’s also meant to address greenhouse gases generated by food in landfills.
White Pony Express also distributes clothes, shoes, books, and toys at events, from a much-smaller “general store” operation. Though it did gather 33 pallets worth of food, medical devices, clothing, and tactical equipment like boots and gas masks for Ukraine.
“We go where the community needs it,” said the store’s lone paid employee, Steve Harrell. “It’s hard for the communities who need it to come to Pleasant Hill. So we go to them.”
Birge and company are scouting new locations, preferably one big enough for an industrial size kitchen to prepare and repackage food for distribution.
“We need to be located in central county, because much of our focus is on East County and the Richmond area,” Birge said. “We want to have a model like this in every community.”
White Pony Express operates on a $2.5 million budget, 40 percent of which comes from individual donations. The rest comes from grants and other sources, including a partnership with CalRecycle.
“At the end of the day we can’t rely on big bureaucracies,” Birge said. “It’s really about neighbor helping neighbor.”
The food comes from companies like Hello Fresh, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods, Methodology, and Starbucks, among others. “Really wonderful, high-quality foods,” Birge said. “And we cornered the market on farmer’s markets.”
McGovern seemed impressed.
“Just because you’re having difficulties or challenges or are in a vulnerable population, doesn’t mean you should just have the scraps,” McGovern said. “You should have the dignity of good food.
“Someday, someone will explain to me the best buy (expiration) dates. I don’t understand. None of them mean that the food’s no good.”
McGovern said he’ll pass on what he learned and try getting White Pony Express a seat at the national table when it comes to food scarcity. “With this White House conference, what we’re trying to get the White House to figure out is: If the Federal government could be wind in your back, what would be the most helpful?
“Throwing away good food is a sin,” McGovern said. “You’re making sure we’re not throwing away good food. You’re making sure we’re re-capturing food. You’re getting to people in need. One of the things we’re trying to tell people, by doing that, you’re making your community healthier.”
To find out more about White Pony Express, go to https://www.whiteponyexpress.org/.
Wow, finally they are going to do something like this and yes the sale by date needs to be redone! Perfectly good food thrown out that even me a picky eater might even eat? It’s a dang shame that people are going hungry and yes even ive needed a boost from time to time and you can only get canned foods and Mac and cheese. (canned tuna with no mayo or bread yuck)!
Sometimes if your lucky you can get milk. There is a once a month program where you can get some cheese but nearly everything is always ment to be able to last which yes is good but why don’t they have a daily or weekly store or something like that to go in and get lunch meat or hummus peaches etc. All this ends up in the landfill and not hungry children’s tummy? That should be a crime for real!
What about sending it to soup kitchens too? Boy I didn’t know this was happening and I’m plenty mad, the more I think about it! What a stupid plan that’s been happening and thank you Rep McGovern for coming to our area to educate!! 😃 😊 😀
Where’s our stooge (DeSaulnier)?
Wait – so I’m being censored? I can’t mention DeSaulnier’s health?
Get over it people it’s not perfectly good food! If you think it is go dumpster diving and take it home and eat it yourselves.
I volunteer at White Pony and the food is perfectly good food. There is no dumpster diving involved. Meats, fruits, vegetables, eggs, milk are picked up at stores everyday. Just because the sell by date might be today that only means that the store can’t sell it past that date. The food is still good to eat.
Try looking ing the trash cans at the schools where they are giving away “free” lunch and breakfast. Talk about waste, both food and monetary!!!
“in”
Coming all the way from the East Coast, looking for new ways to legislate and spend taxpayer money. Couldn’t have just asked Desaulnier to have his staff put together a report? Or even reach out to a few stores to ask their policies/regulations on food disposal? How about leaving the citizens (not politicians/councils) of Claycord to their own devices and we all know things would be effectively managed. There are plenty of organizations that already collect this food and ensure it gets to citizens. I know of a number of people that have collected hundreds of thousands of dollars (and pounds) of food, which was made available to the community, all done by volunteers. The stores in this area can be very charitable.
Government passes laws mandating sell by dates, and penalties for selling expired product. Government then berates companies for throwing away food. Lawyers are ready to pounce on anyone who donates something that makes someone sick. I mean, the sheer arrogance on the part of the people who created the problem is kind of impressive.
Here’s a tip for people that are idiotic enough to think companies are just throwing away good food because they are evil: THEY DON’T. All lost product is lost profit. They bought those goods, they want to turn them over and make money. They expend a lot of energy to minimize the amount of spoilage to maximize that profit. There are already donation programs through local churches like Saint Vincent DePaul and Trinity to divert items that can still be used, like bread and damaged eggs. The bottleneck there is volunteers, transportation, and distribution before the product is unusable. Bad meat is recovered and sent to outside companies for processing. Bad produce is collected and sent to a composting company that sorts it, and either makes dirt, or diverts it for animal feed. Broken dry goods go back to the company for processing, and I assume are donated or discarded as needed.
There is very little true waste in the food industry. I have nothing against making it easier to donate food, or to encourage doing so. But this tone where it is just Big Food, screwing over the little guy is such an irritating lie. This guy didn’t invent the idea of saving food. If he wants to make the process better, great. There are laws that could be passed to make the process better, like immunity against lawsuits, if he really wants to help. But he can keep the Johnny come lately, holier than though attitude to himself.
Oh, by the way. If you are hungry, shoplifting is legal. All the tweakers and bums just come in and eat what they want anyway. It’s us suckers that are still working hard and paying for our food, for some reason.
They should pass a law to make the USE BY or SELL BY date LARGE enough to read.
I always find expired meat in supermarket butcher’s case.
People just can’t afford it as much anymore so the meat does not sell as fast as it used to.
Great all the talk about a food shortage.That’s all it takes to start a mad rush to the grocery store.What a bunch of bull crap.
He just out-cucked the cucks
There is absolutely zero chance that the federal government can do this better.
Thank you Claycod for publishing this Public Relations Report from White Pony Express. It’s nice to know that the sacrafice of others – is being used for the greater good of all. They are very well funded, and supported – (thanks to those who made a tremendous effort and funding to launch this project). The Religious Organization that founded it is not getting the attention it deserves.
Thank you Claycod for publishing this Public Relations Report from White Pony Express. It’s nice to know that the sacrifice of others – is being used for the greater good of all. They are very well funded, and supported – (thanks to those who made a tremendous effort and funding to launch this project). The Religious Organization that founded it is not getting the attention it deserves.