BELL, Calif. (KABC) — With so many closures and job cuts at restaurants, hotels and other businesses, farmers are finding fewer buyers for their crops. And that’s even amid spikes in food sales at grocery stores during this coronavirus pandemic.
ABC7 spoke to Rick Nahmias with Food Forward via Skype Wednesday to talk about Food Forward, a nonprofit organization that has spent years recovering surplus produce so it doesn’t end up wasted or in landfills and gets the food to local families in need.
With this crisis, how much produce is your team now rescuing?
“Well, to give you an idea before the crisis started “Produce Pit Stop,” which is a warehouse where I’m at right now, was moving about 500-550,000 thousand pounds of produce a week. It is now moving over 800,000 pounds a week. It is kind of a crazy story of recovering produce from virtually every corner of the state by the pallet, and what we do is we recover it and then donate it for free to agencies that feed those in need,” Nahmias said.