Upcycling On-Farm Food Waste Through Produce Buyers Club Gleaning Initiative and Produce Education and Enjoyment Loop (PEEL) Outreach Program

View the project report

Commodities

• Fruits: melons
• Vegetables: broccoli, cabbages, cucurbits, eggplant, greens (leafy), greens (lettuces), onions, sweet corn, sweet potatoes, tomatoes

Practices

• Sustainable Communities: food loss and waste recovery/reduction, food sovereignty

Concrete Jungle has been connecting the dots between delicious Georgia-grown produce that would otherwise go to waste and families facing food and nutrition insecurity for 15 years. We have mapped 3,200 urban fruit trees and worked with over 50 Georgia farms to provide 2.1 million pounds or 8.5 million servings to 70 food pantries and hunger relief partners serving over 300,000 food-insecure individuals across the state. We were able to make a big impact during the pandemic when we leveraged these relationships to create a new market for farmers’ seconds called Produce Buyers Club (PBC) Through PBC, we work with farmers to purchase their imperfect or excess produce. By coupling PBC with our distribution and outreach efforts to food pantries, collectively known as the Produce Education and Enjoyment Loop (PEEL) program, we have created an innovative solution to the dual problems of food waste and food insecurity that 1) diverts farm food waste, 2) delivers new revenue to farmers, 3) and provides fresh produce to people living in low-income, low access (LILA) areas of Atlanta at the lowest possible price. For the first few years, we were able to meet the demand for these programs with our small staff. 

As this new market for upcycling food waste has increasingly proved viable, demand has increased from partners on all sides. We receive calls daily from farmers asking CJ to purchase their imperfect or excess produce. We have food pantry partners calling us weekly, demanding 4-6 varieties of produce to share with their clients. We know that there is a significant supply and demand we are not able to meet at our current capacity. To meet this capacity we need to 1) invest in personnel to support our Farm Recovery Manager including coordinator positions to focus specifically on outreach and marketing/communications; 2) invest in better trucking options to streamline PBC pickups and PEEL deliveries; 3) create strong collateral to reach and support PBC and PEEL partners on both ends of the pipeline. As we expand and improve both programs with these investments, we will document best practices for each step in the collection and distribution pipeline and produce fact sheets, guides and easy-to-digest training materials to share with other organizations working on solutions to food loss and waste. 

With help from SARE, Concrete Jungle can deepen established partnerships and build new partnerships in areas that are hot spots for food loss, food waste, and food insecurity. We can greatly improve marketing, training, outreach and education efforts that benefit farmers, partners, and consumers. This will be done by investing in personnel, equipment, materials and professional development opportunities that will bolster current operations and increase efficiencies to  establish best practices that can then be shared with similar organizations through presentations at conferences, digital training manuals and collaborative workshops. By the end of the three year grant period, we will have a strong and replicable model for upcycling food waste through proven methods that have a significant societal, environmental, and economic impact. 

Concrete Jungle’s Produce Buyers Club program is a proven, effective method for engaging farmers with edible food waste and ensuring that food makes it to the plates of families who need it.  With the support of SARE’s Food Loss and Waste Technical and Training Assistance grant, Concrete Jungle will continue to close the gap between food waste on farms and food-insecure families. We will do this by increasing farmers’ capacity to sell their food waste and building the consumer market for this produce at partner agencies.  Simultaneously, Concrete Jungle will grow its capacity to procure and distribute more produce, establishing  protocols along the way to create a replicable model that can be shared with similar organizations around the country. Our objectives through the SARE grant are:

1. Address food-insecurity by diverting 700,000 pounds of on-farm food waste to food insecure families annually by 2027.  CJ has created a viable market to keep perfectly nutritious but “imperfect” (blemished or flawed fruits and vegetables that do not meet strict grocery standards) produce wasted on Georgia farms in the food supply chain, but we cannot currently meet the demand for the Produce Buyer’s Club. With the help of SARE, Concrete Jungle will build out Produce Buyers Club’s infrastructure to create long-term growth for the program. Infrastructure build out will involve hiring a program coordinator, increasing the hours of our warehouse manager, renting a refrigerated truck and building out our online inventory management and ordering platform
2. Strengthen Georgia farmers’ resiliency by expanding their capacity to sell their unmarketable produce.  Many Georgia farmers do not know that Produce Buyers Club exists and is a viable secondary market for their imperfect or excess produce that doesn’t make it to retail outlets.  With the support of SARE, we will create marketing materials to increase awareness of Produce Buyers Club, and we will train 5-10 farmers each year on the types, quality and quantity of produce (the supply) we need for PBC as well as how to safely store and manage the excess produce until we are able to pick it up. 
3. Expand the market for Concrete Jungle’s PBC produce through enhanced marketing and training of hunger relief organizations that serve individuals experiencing food and nutrition-insecurity. Several of our partners requested support to distribute Concrete Jungle produce because it is often unfamiliar to clients or does not look like produce that they typically see in stores. Concrete Jungle created PEEL to provide educational materials and activities to lower barriers to clients using and enjoying our upcycled produce. With SARE funding, Concrete Jungle will create educational and marketing materials on our produce as well as a training program for partners to encourage the 300,000 food insecure individuals served by our partners to incorporate CJ produce into their diets.
4. Increase fruit and vegetable consumption among nutrition-insecure individuals  through PEEL education activities at community partner organizations. One of the most important lessons CJ learned from our partners early on is that making produce available does not guarantee that families who need it most will end up with it on their plates. In order for our produce to have a “food as medicine” effect, we have to support our partners and those they serve by familiarizing them with our produce and funding activities to encourage their consumption. Through PEEL, CJ currently provides recipe cards with 80% of the produce distributed and holds cooking demonstrations to encourage families to try more fresh fruits and vegetables. We know that PEEL activities amplify the success of the Produce Buyer's Club by helping families integrate fresh produce into their meals and reap the benefits of consuming more nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables. In 2023 PEEL engaged 588 clients through events and distributed 2,422 recipe cards, but there is potential for PEEL to have a much greater impact by holding more consistent education activities and developing a wider variety of printed and digital materials. Additionally, with SARE’s help, we can gather better data on the perceived health impacts (feeling better, having more energy, etc.) consuming more produce is having for those who attend PEEL events, make use of our recipe cards and frequently enjoy CJ’s produce. 

5. PBC will be a replicable model that can be used by other similar organizations, ultimately helping the USDA, EPA and FDA achieve their goal of reducing food loss by 50% in 2030.  As we invest in building capacity internally and externally as well as creating a larger market for PBC produce, we will generate and document best practices, protocols, curriculum, and marketing materials that can be shared with similar gleaning organizations and/or hunger relief agencies to create their own PBC or PEEL. We will provide printed and digital materials as well as in-person and digital instruction to support interested organizations and attend conferences and other educational events  to share presentations on our work diverting food waste on farms and upcycling it to food-insecure individuals.

See attached letters of support from some of our partners
Southern
Valley LOS
Georgia Dept of Ag LOS
NETworks Support Letter
Association of Gleaning Organizations LOS
Home Church Roswell