Here is how to think about the equipment and technology you will need to run a successful food rescue program.
Equipment
Questions to Consider
- What type of food rescue will you be doing? Will you be harvesting fruits and vegetables from fields or trees, or picking up prepackaged food from a store?
- What storage needs, such as refrigeration, will the surplus produce require?
- What equipment do you or those in your network already have?
- Where will you store your equipment?
- Do you have a name and logo that could appear on your equipment? If you will be working with a large number of hunger relief organizations and produce donors, branding your equipment, even with a sticker or stamp, can be helpful.
- Do you plan to transport the surplus produce yourself, or will a hunger relief organization pick it up?
- What equipment is needed versus wanted?
Tips
- Offer safety training and clear instructions for all equipment you provide. We advise volunteers not to use ladders of any kind or equipment other than what is provided. This encourages a safe experience and reduces the chance of accidents.
- Think about how your equipment and events might be experienced by people of different ages, abilities, and backgrounds. Volunteers can help with tasks besides heavy lifting, such as removing leaves and stems from produce, boxing it up, and recording weight.
Equipment Reference: How Food Forward Does It
- Below is an example of how we approach equipment across our programs. Use this as a starting point for thinking through your own needs.
- For all volunteer events, we bring volunteer waivers and pens, flyers and business cards, and key information for Event Leaders such as contacts, a leader manual, equipment safety policies, emergency procedures, and a certificate of liability insurance. Staff and volunteer Event Leaders wear branded t-shirts and name tags, and we use sturdy branded cardboard boxes for all surplus produce collected through our Backyard Harvest and Farmers Market Recovery programs.
- Backyard Harvest events typically include gloves and goggles, harvesting equipment such as fruit pickers, extension poles, clippers, pruners, rakes, and garbage bags, and yard signs to let passersby know what is happening.
- Farmers Market Recovery events typically include a hand cart to transport produce boxes through the market, aprons and back braces, and a scale with a dry erase sheet and marker to track donations on site.
Technology
Questions to Consider
- What information do you plan to track, and what platform or system will you use to track it?
- How will you communicate with your stakeholders, including volunteers, hunger relief organizations, produce donors, and financial donors?
- What data points matter most? Key things to track include pounds of surplus produce recovered, which hunger relief organizations you donate to, how many volunteers you have, and how many servings of fresh fruits and vegetables your food rescue program delivers to people experiencing food insecurity.
Tips
Consider using the same size container or box for produce where possible, especially if you recover a limited number of varieties. When you know a full box of oranges weighs approximately 35 pounds, you do not need to weigh each full box. It is still helpful to weigh boxes that are not full, contain varieties you do not usually recover, or contain more than one variety.