Ceo and Board Chairperson Message
Before dawn on August 31, 2023, a truck hauling a perfectly ripening load of Crenshaw melons pulled into Loading Dock 4 at the Food Forward Produce Pit Stop in Bell, CA. Over the next 20 minutes, our expert staff, with a cumulative 300+ years of experience in the produce industry, soon folded them into mixed pallets of 23 other types of fresh produce. Within hours, these were distributed to 32 organizations, which picked up loads ranging from 2,000 pound pallets in semi-tractor trailers down to just a few dozen small mixed packages for passenger cars.
By 2 p.m., Food Forward had logged its biggest day of donations of fresh produce in its history: 652,000 lbs of fresh fruits and vegetables.
In all honesty, this day could never have transpired in year one, year five—but it was possible in 2023 as we crested towards our 15-year anniversary, during which we satisfied the nutritional needs of over a quarter million people each day through deep partnerships with our 260 hunger relief partners.
We often measure our impact in pounds, pallets, and truckloads, but there is so much more. The impact of our work is truly based on every human being who makes all this possible, and whom our food reaches. So we wanted to share those stories of individuals and communities whose lives have been transformed by having access to healthy fruits and vegetables coming through Food Forward. The effects last far beyond any given meal; they’re laying the long-term foundation to Build Generational Health.
While we have experienced tremendous growth in impact in the last few years, Food Forward remains an incredibly effective and efficient operation and a “best-in-class” social investment.
- Our operational cost to recover and distribute a pound of produce is approximately $.07/lb.
- With our “High Impact + High Civic Engagement” model, on an operational budget of $6.3M; in 2023 we distributed nutritional fresh produce valued at $168M to our hunger relief partners.
Even now at 15 years, we still feel that there are bigger things to come with a very pure sense of possibility. We hope that as you read our 2023 Impact Report, and when you think of Food Forward, you feel that same sense of wondrous possibility to the future we can build together.
Fruitfully,
Rick Nahmias, Founder/CEO
Rob Valencia, Board Chair, 2021-2024
Jeff Harris, Board Chair, 2024-2027