Episode 236: Rick Nahmias and Nkemdilim Nwosu
Oct 12, 2022
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“Did you know one in nine Californians lack adequate access to food? That’s nearly four million people! At the same time, 40% of food in the United States or 80 billion pounds is wasted every year.”
Whether you live in California or have just visited, you’ve certainly seen streets lined with beautiful, abundant trees producing fresh fruits. These fruits unfortunately often go to waste – dropping into streets and onto sidewalks for passersby to mindlessly step on or drive over. It’s a sad sight to see when we have a country battling food insecurity and food deserts, and 80 billion pounds of food in the United States is wasted every year.
Seeing this constant food waste while also documenting our nation’s food systems and the lives of migrant workers, Rick Nahmias, CEO of Food Forward, asked his friend Heather if he could harvest the fruit from her tangerine tree and give it to a local food pantry. He put an ad out on Craigslist for volunteers who wanted to help, dug through Costco dumpsters to find empty boxes, and over the course of three weekends harvested over 800 pounds of oranges and tangerines that he sent to the SOVA food pantry, to which they eagerly asked for more!
It wasn’t just Heather with a fruit-producing tree that regularly was wasted. Rick noticed neighbors who had orange, avocado, grapefruit, and pomegranate trees, all that needed to be pruned and donated, otherwise the fruit was wasted. Taking his idea and running with it, Rick formed a nonprofit called Food Forward and within the first year harvested over 100,000 pounds of produce. Homeowners were happy to get the help pruning their trees, and food pantries happily accepted the donations of produce that food insecure individuals wouldn’t normally have access to.
Thanks to some website SEO magic, Food Forward quickly grew to be a well known resource for wholesalers with entire shipments they needed to donate. Rick started a wholesale program that took FF to an entirely new level, with 300,000 pounds of wholesale produce being donated in the first year. This was huge considering wholesalers often have to get rid of entire shipments just because, for example, the tip of a mango has browned, or the produce doesn’t look “picture perfect”. What’s amazing to learn is how Food Forward started out with just a couple volunteers and now they are celebrating the feeding of over 250 million mouths!
Food waste is one of the top five highest sources of methane emissions, in part because so much of it is dumped into landfills unnecessarily.
Once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Food Forward went from a 25 million pound per year production to a 250% increase, which triggered the opening of a warehouse where they can properly store and refrigerate items until they can be delivered. Typically produce will remain at the “pitstop” for no more than two days before being sent out, and they see about 300-400 different varieties of produce move through the organization yearly from all across the world. Thankfully, many of the teammates at the warehouse have decades of experience in produce, so they understand how to store and take care of each product.
Food Forward solves a huge problem many wholesalers and food pantries have had of not being able to handle such large shipments. For example, they just received 20 huge containers of brussel sprouts that one food pantry wouldn’t be able to handle. Food Forward will spread this out across multiple small, medium and large agencies they work with, so food doesn’t get wasted no matter the size or volume. They now have 340 hunger relief partners and just celebrated one of them receiving one million pounds of produce from Food Forward, even though they’ve only been around for two years.
You might be thinking how you can help an organization like Food Forward if you’re unable to volunteer. Of course, donations always help, but the FF team encourages you to connect with your local food shed and any organization (farm, restaurant, etc.) that has an abundance of food that regularly gets wasted. Rick just started out with his own car and boxes from Costco, and you can too! Their website www.foodforward.org has plenty of resources to help you start your own micro-gleaning group in your own community.
Both Nkemdilim Nwosu and Rick remind us that eliminating food waste starts with how you eat personally and how you feed your family. Don’t overshop, be intentional with what you purchase, how you prepare your food, and what you do to take care of your own environment and community along the way. Being mindful about how you feed your family at home doesn’t just help with our food waste, it also helps the environment because food waste is one of the top highest sources of methane emissions.
Again, make sure to visit www.foodforward.org to see the incredible impact they’re making and find out how you can start eliminating food waste in your local community today.
How to Get Involved
- Join The Produce Moms Group on Facebook and continue the discussion every week!
- Reach out to us – we’d love to hear more about where you are in life and business! Find out more here.
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