Californians send 11.2 billion pounds of food waste to landfills each year. Wasted food breaks down relatively quickly, contributing to more than half of methane emissions from municipal solid waste landfills (EPA). Meanwhile, thousands in our community struggle to afford healthy groceries.
Much of the food headed to landfills is over-purchased, surplus food that is still edible and safe. BFN has forged deep partnerships with local grocery stores and food producers to intercept, rescue, and redistribute hundreds of thousands of pounds per year to our neighbors in need. This recovered food is edible and still has nutritional value, but cannot be sold for various reasons such as cosmetic damages or overpurchasing.
As a local leader in food recovery, we are reducing the harmful footprint caused by food waste and ensuring our hungry neighbors have access to high-quality and safe food.
Safety & Quality First
It’s paramount that BFN is always providing the safest food possible for our community. Four days a week, we pick up pallets of recovered food from our partners. Volunteers sort each delivery, composting anything that doesn’t align with our standards. If we wouldn’t eat it, we won’t distribute it.
Reducing Carbon Emissions
Emissions from food rotting in landfills account for 6% of global emissions. To put it in perspective, that’s three times the global emissions from aviation. Last year, BFN’s rescued food amounted to saving 80 years of electricity consumption for one household!
Supporting Local Businesses
California Senate Bill 1383 mandates food producers work with community-based organizations like BFN to divert their edible food waste to food-insecure communities. We work with local grocers and food producers to procure their high-quality extras for our community, in turn supporting small businesses in their SB 1383 compliance.
Our Food Recovery Partners
View our Partner Page for a list of all our sourcing partners.
Interested in becoming a BFN food recovery partner? Click here to view our guidelines.
To promote equitable food options across our programs serving many communities, BFN is seeking partners who can provide large-scale and ongoing recovered food such as case or pallet amounts. We accept smaller, community one-off donations on a case-by-case basis.
We can only accept unopened, unexpired, and safely stored recovered food. This helps us promote food safety and dignity for those we support.
If you have any questions about what we accept or are interested in partnering with us, email us at foodrecovery@berkeleyfoodnetwork.org.
Waste Not, Want Not.
Partner Highlight—Dandelion Kitchen
Every week our partners at Dandelion Kitchen shop hundreds of pounds of recovered food with us to take back to the Urban Adamah kitchen. Dandelion volunteers turn this produce into beautiful vegetarian meals and return them to the BFN warehouse where we distribute them through our pantry and Home Delivery programs. The single-serving meals provide essential and convenient nourishment for our members experiencing challenges cooking at home, such as chronic illness or lack of kitchen space and resources.
Photos by Brenna Ritch
