Food Forward is a nonprofit that does as its name suggests: it forwards surplus fruits and vegetables to those in need. Founded in 2009, this Los Angeles-based organization fights the good fight every day: reducing food waste and channeling healthy produce to food insecure communities.
Food Forward also serves as an essential resource for area businesses, like the suppliers at the L.A. Wholesale Produce Market. We asked Rick, Food Forward’s founder and CEO, about his raison d’être, current challenges, and where the group is headed in 2026 and beyond.
Q: Tell us about your background and education.
I had an interesting college experience double majoring in film and religious studies at New York University, then spent my early career as a photographer, writer, and filmmaker focused on documenting marginalized communities.
My work included creating The Migrant Project: Contemporary California Farm Workers, a traveling photojournalism exhibition and book published by the University of New Mexico Press with a foreword by Dolores Huerta. This experience in particular shaped how I think about the people behind our food system.
Q: What were your early career aspirations? Did you work in the fresh produce or greater food industry?
Early on, I wanted to build a career in documentary storytelling and creative work. Before Food Forward, I worked as a photographer and writer, and later leaned into food through formal culinary training, attending the Culinary Institute of America.
The mix of storytelling and hands-on kitchen experience shaped how I think about food access, food waste, and the human cost of feeding the country. Add to that values centered around dignity, gratitude, and the practical systems it takes to move healthy food to people who need it, and you have the recipe for what inspired Food Forward.
Q: Tell us about the founding of Food Forward, was this its original name?
It was 2009, right at the height of the Great Recession. I was out walking my dog through the neighborhood when I noticed something that seemed epidemic: fruit everywhere, wasting under backyard trees. Then there were food pantries a few miles away with lines snaking around the block.
That disconnect hit me hard. Here was this abundance going to waste right in front of me, while people were struggling to put food on the table. I thought, someone has to do something about this. So I posted on Craigslist. A couple of volunteers came together for that first harvest, and we loaded up whatever we could carry and drove it straight to a local pantry.
There was no name, just a lot of good spirit and a growing sense of people wanting a tangible solution to a failing economy and wanting to feel useful. The name, Food Forward, came weeks, if not months later, and seemed to capture exactly what we were doing: moving food forward to where it was needed most.
That first small harvest of 85 pounds of backyard tangerines planted the seed for what has since grown into a regional food recovery model, but it all traces back to that day when I realized the solution was literally falling from the trees.
Q: What were your initial goals? How much did they evolve over the first several years?
Initially, the goal was simple: prevent good food from going to waste and share it with neighbors experiencing food insecurity. As demand grew and volunteers returned week after week, it became clear the model had the potential to scale.
Yet it was also clear it wouldn’t be helpful to build another food pantry but rather to build a regular and no-cost pipeline of fresh produce to the agencies already in place doing good work.
Within a few years, Food Forward expanded beyond backyard gleaning to farmers markets, and eventually to wholesale recovery. While the scale evolved dramatically, the model is still simple enough for a five-year-old to understand.
Sadly too, the need hasn’t shrunk, it’s only grown, and thus our core mission has remained the same: rescue fresh fruits and vegetables and distribute them with dignity, free of charge.
Q: When did you begin working with the L.A. Wholesale Produce Market?
Food Forward began recovering produce from the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market in 2014, marking the start of our Wholesale Recovery work there.
Humorously, the first year we started this program, it was funded by a pilot grant where we forecast we’d rescue 300,000 pounds. When the year was done it was 4.1 million pounds!
We knew we had something special here and the produce donors began reaching out, seeing the win-win for them and us.
Our Wholesale Recovery capacity expanded significantly with the opening of the Produce Pit Stop in Bell, CA in June 2019 as Food Forward’s first warehouse and cold storage hub for this program.
Q: How has Food Forward’s scope expanded? Tell us about all the ways you rescue perishables bound for landfills.
Food Forward’s recovery model is designed to work in direct partnership with the produce industry, prioritizing high-volume, time-sensitive recovery from growers, packers, shippers, and distributors.
Our Wholesale Recovery Program moves full pallets and truckloads of surplus produce quickly and efficiently to our Produce Pit Stop, where it is sorted and immediately redistributed to hunger-relief partners.
In addition to wholesale recovery, Food Forward operates community-based recovery efforts, including backyard gleaning and farmers market recovery to capture smaller-scale surplus and complement our industry partnerships.
Together, these efforts allow Food Forward to recover enough fresh fruits and vegetables to feed over 300,000 people every day of the year!
With our unique network, we’re able to reach across the region and the supply chain to ensure high-quality surplus produce reaches communities experiencing food insecurity with minimal delay.
Q: How many branches or locations do you have now?
Food Forward operates primarily in Southern California, with our central hub being the Produce Pit Stop warehouse in Bell. This facility provides the cold storage, docks, and inventory systems needed to move millions of pounds of produce each week.
We also have an office in North Hollywood for administrative work, plus a small outpost in Ventura.
Bell is our main hub, and from there, we distribute to more than 260 nonprofit partner agencies of every size and stripe across Los Angeles and Ventura counties, and when supplies allow, surrounding states and regions.
Q: Do people or businesses bring food to your facilities, or do you always pick it up? How many trucks or routes do you have?
Both. Some donors deliver produce directly to our warehouse, while in many cases our drivers pick up from donors throughout the region. Food Forward operates multiple trucks and routes daily, adjusting logistics based on donor availability, volume, and community need.
We learned early on to work within the systems and hours of the produce industry. Flexibility is key to ensuring perishable food moves quickly and safely. These are just a few of the things that differentiate us from other hunger relief organizations.
Q: Describe your typical daily process. Is there much difference between weekdays and weekends?
Our large-scale recovery occurs during the week starting at 3:00 am. Trucks arrive throughout the day, produce is weighed and sorted, and deliveries are dispatched to hunger relief partners (large and small) such as community centers, senior centers, pantries, agencies serving veterans and seniors, family resource hubs, and emergency distribution partners.
Volunteers power our recovery through the weekend. While the logistics vary, the goal remains the same every day of the week: move fresh produce quickly to families and communities who are facing hunger and nutrition insecurity.
Q: As a nonprofit, how much do you rely on grants or financial donations?
Food Forward’s produce recovery programs are fueled primarily by tax-deductible philanthropic support, including grants, individual donations, and corporate partnerships.
Financial contributions are essential, as they allow us to recover and distribute produce at no cost to our hunger relief partners, and thereby the people experiencing food insecurity that they serve.
Every dollar invested yields 10 pounds, or 56 servings, of fresh fruits and vegetables for communities in need, making financial support one of the most efficient ways to fuel hunger relief and food waste reduction.
Q: Tell us about your fundraising efforts.
Food Forward’s fundraising approach is closely aligned with the produce industry and designed to create clear, tangible, and transparent pathways for industry partners to serve as sustainability partners.
We engage growers, shippers, wholesalers, and retailers through partnership-driven opportunities, while helping the industry meet sustainability and corporate social responsibility benchmarks. Industry support most often takes the form of produce donations, but also monetary sponsorships of events and projects.
We ensure produce-industry partners can clearly see how their investment strengthens the food system. Last year’s work cost approximately $9 million operationally but the fresh produce we handled was valued at nearly $200 million.
Q: What are Food Forward’s top goals for 2026?
In 2026, Food Forward aims to strengthen and stabilize our recovery infrastructure while deepening partnerships across the produce industry.
We’re focused on ensuring consistent access to fresh fruits and vegetables during periods of heightened need, such as federal food benefit disruptions and climate-related emergencies (both of which our communities have experienced all too frequently in recent years).
Food Forward has ramped up distribution and remained flexible to support our hunger relief partners’ evolving needs as their service communities face heightened food insecurity and economic uncertainty.
As we develop our 2026-28 strategic plan, our immediate priority is to maintain high-volume, consistent produce distributions to hunger relief organizations serving people in the highest-need areas of Los Angeles and the region. We’re excited about where this strategic plan will take us.
Q: What else would you like readers to know?
Food Forward’s success is driven by deep and intentional collaboration, including with our produce industry partners.
At its core, Food Forward is about sharing—and is proof that abundance exists and can easily find a home. When systems are aligned and partnerships are strong, good food can and should nourish people instead of going to waste.
We’re also always welcoming new produce donors across every part of the industry. If you’re a grower, shipper, wholesaler, or distributor with surplus fruits and vegetables, you can learn more and connect with our team here.
Taryn Pfalzgraf is director of content development & strategy for Blue Book Services.