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Badger Prairie Needs Network volunteer Di Berg applies labels to recovered pasta primavera from Epic (left); Nancy Dubisz labels leftover soup from Epic.
Badger Prairie Needs Network, a Verona nonprofit focused on fighting hunger, runs a food pantry and, until recently, sponsored a community meal program. Demand on the food pantry has surged since COVID-19 hit: The number of households using its food pantry increased 102 percent between March 19 and April 30.
But Badger Prairie is more than a food pantry. It’s a leader in the Madison area in food recovery — that is, rescuing food that would otherwise go to waste from restaurants, company cafeterias, caterers and grocery stores.
It is a founding member of Kitchen-to-Table: Wisconsin Food Recovery Network, started in 2018 to expand food recovery and distribution to food pantries and community meals in the region.
But the recovered food supply largely stopped in mid-March, recalls Marcia Kasieta, executive director of Badger Prairie: “It was a massive food disruption.”
Restaurants closed. Events were cancelled, so there was no surplus from catering. Conversely, grocery stores experienced a surge in demand, so there was almost no extra food to recover from that source.
Initially, there was food to be recovered. The World Championship Cheese Contest had just taken place in Madison March 3-5, and there were thousands of pounds of bulk cheese “in 20- to 30-pound blocks” that had been saved for tasting events that never took place, says Kasieta. The challenge was how to have volunteers safely package these into smaller sizes. Ultimately a devoted “cheese team” was able to adequately social distance and get all of the cheese wrapped and distributed.
And Epic Systems had a large amount of surplus food on hand from its dining rooms after many of its employees started working from home. Epic normally partners with Badger Prairie, typically donating “around 1,000 pounds of food each month,” says Epic spokesperson Ashley Gibson. But “when the Safer at Home Order went into place, the number of people we were feeding [on campus] fell off a cliff.” Epic honored its orders with local vendors — “most of which are local, independent businesses located in Dane County” says Gibson — and ultimately in the period from March 16–May 8, donated around 62,000 pounds of food, or more than 51,600 meals, to Badger Prairie.
At Epic, purchasing amounts have now been scaled back, but donations continue as the kitchen still has perishable food on hand that it’s not going to be able to otherwise use, reports Gibson.
After restaurants were closed for in-house dining on March 17, some donated what food they still had on-hand in their kitchens. But “that [source] has been gone for some time,” Kasieta says. Likewise, caterers: “They’re gone.”
On the bright side, Kasieta reflects, “Amazingly, I don’t know of any food that went to waste.”
Currently Badger Prairie is not accepting food recovery donations, as it reconsiders its packaging and handling procedures in light of the safety of its volunteers — who not only pick up food but repackage it from bulk to family-friendly containers and label those with use-by dates, ingredients, reheat instructions and allergens.
But Kasieta expects to re-start food recovery operations within the next couple of weeks. Grocery stores are, she says, once again calling, saying “Please come back, we have food for you.”
Kasieta hopes that Badger Prairie can get funds to rent a box truck with a lift gate that can handle food on pallets “so that volunteers can quickly get in and out of stores, and reduce handling of items that should be quarantined before we distribute.” The group needs about $14,500 to rent such a vehicle through December 2020 and is awaiting word on funding. Badger Prairie is also launching a fundraising campaign to expand its small community room so that it can once again hold a community meal, with adequate space for social distancing.
Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin never did food recovery from restaurants or caterers, but normally accepts large amounts of surplus foods from many supermarkets. Recently, “there’s not been a lot to recover,” says Kris Tazelaar, director of marketing and communication for Second Harvest. Grocers “have less to sell, and customers are buying it up.”
Prior to COVID-19, 80% of Second Harvest’s food, including recovered food, was donated, and the nonprofit would purchase the rest. Now, says Tazelaar, the foodbank needs to purchase 60-65% of its food supply: “We’re spending $225,000 more a week.”
Tazelaar is grateful for the support that Second Harvest is getting from the public and corporations as it has found itself in the odd position of competing with other pantries and even grocery stores in buying food to satisfy the unprecedented demand.
Chris Brockel, FEED Kitchen Manager and project coordinator for Healthy Food For All, a community food recovery project, says its work is “a bit on hold” right now. Healthy Food for All regularly gets surplus food from restaurants and catered events, as well as from local farms.
Right after the Safer at Home order was issued, “we got a ton of calls from restaurants and caterers who were shutting down,” including Monona Catering from the Monona Terrace Convention Center. “We burned through that fast in our community meal program,” says Brockel.
Now, calls are scarce. “We are getting a few calls from larger manufacturers,” Brockel says, citing RP’s Pasta. He also received a large amount of sugar from a company that was going organic; the FEED Kitchen is now using it in its baking program.
But Brockel doesn’t foresee the level of food his agency usually receives from restaurants and caterers returning for quite some time: “Not until events start up again.”
Healthy Food for All is still doing farm gleaning, accepting surplus product from area farms, but there’s not a lot of that either. Shoppers are “really going local,” Brockel says.
However Snug Haven Farm has been donating produce — “sweet turnips, kale, collards, chard,” says Brockel — after closing on March 31. According to a statement on its website, Snug Haven shut down after deciding its operation was “too small for the safety of our employees and family.”
Brockel wants other farms to know that as the season goes on, Healthy Food for All is ready to take and use any surplus.
Reluctantly looking for a silver lining, Brockel hopes that the pandemic has prompted people to “rethink the systems” that have led to so much food insecurity and food waste and “reconsider their food habits.”
