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

Commodities

Practices

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 partnersSouthern
Valley LOS
Georgia Dept of Ag LOS
NETworks Support Letter Association
of Gleaning Organizations LOS
Home Church Roswell