A quarter of CT trash is wasted food. Organizations are changing that, one can and pallet at a time

On any given morning, Sarah Bromley drives around the New Haven area, picking up surplus food from grocery stores and delivering it to social-service organizations.

Bromley, who lives in Milford, has been a volunteer for Haven’s Harvest in New Haven for about seven years. It has become her passion.

“It’s hard to wrap your head around the sheer quantity of food that is thrown out in our country,” Bromley said. “We’re not only feeding people, we’re helping to keep food out of the trash.”

According to a state lawmaker, food that is wasted equates to 24% of the waste stream in Connecticut. And Feeding America reports that 119 billion pounds of food a year is wasted in the United States, which adds up to more than $408 billion.

Haven’s Harvest is one of several food-recovery organizations in the state. The recovery groups are different than food pantries and soup kitchens, which usually get perishable and nonperishable food through a network of food banks.

Food-recovery organizations pick up perishable and prepared food from grocery stores, bakeries and restaurants — which can’t sell food past its expiration date — and universities that have leftover cafeteria and catering food. The food is delivered immediately to organizations that give it to community members.

“We bring food to schools, day-care centers, senior day centers, subsidized housing units, health clinics, sober homes, faith centers, social service organizations,” said Lori Martin, who founded Haven’s Harvest with her son and daughter.

Sister Luisa works at one of those organizations, Apostle Immigrant Services in New Haven. Each Tuesday, Apostle prepares food boxes for 60 families. Apostle also has a pop-up pantry. People start lining up three hours before it opens, she said.

“Haven’s Harvest helps people like us provide food where we otherwise wouldn’t because we don’t have the requirements to be a food pantry,” Sister Luisa said. “It does allow us safely to distribute food once a week.”

Sell-by date

Martin said even if a perishable or prepared food has reached its sell-by date, it can be donated to a food-recovery group.

“They can’t sell it but they can still donate it. We tell our partners, hey we have this amazing food. It’s good today or tomorrow, but maybe not a third day. It’s good, nutritious food that needs to be eaten right away,” Martin said. “It takes hustle, fast footwork and quick logistics to keep it in the food system.”

Haven’s Harvest also gets some food from food pantries. “Maybe they have too much food or it was a rainy day and people didn’t come out, or it was too hot, or it was the beginning of the month and people are not feeling the pinch as much yet,” she said. “We will pick up a pallet of produce or dried beans or whatever.”

Haven’s Harvest, founded in 2015, now has a volunteer corps of 400 people who use an app to keep track of when and where food needs to be picked up and dropped off. In the last three years, Martin said, Haven’s Harvest has redistributed a million and a half pounds of food each year, donated by 150 partner companies.

A problem rooted in housing

Sister Luisa said the need for food among her immigrant clientele began booming during COVID. “So many of our clients were not able to receive the extra money coming from the government. Also they work in the hotels and restaurants and were losing their jobs,” she said.

The need is still great, Bromley said, to a great degree due to the crisis in housing affordability.

“The root cause of a lot of this is the lack of safe, secure housing that people can afford and attain,” she said. “After they pay for housing, many don’t have money left over for things like food.

“In this country, we have the ability to end poverty. This is just putting on a band-aid but it’s important. I like to say ‘we make poverty livable’,” she said.

Governmental solutions

Dorinda Borer is another volunteer for Haven’s Harvest. Borer, a member of the state House of Representatives serving West Haven, does food runs for the group during the months when legislature is not in session.

“I was chair of the environment committee. I spent a lot of time dealing with the waste crisis. I learned that 24% of our waste stream is food waste,” Borer said. “I also studied food insecurity. It is 13% on average across the state. That didn’t reconcile for me. The food is recoverable. Not all of it, but a lot of it.”

With Sen. Marilyn Moore, Borer headed a food insecurity task force. “One thing we found out is that the state’s approach to food insecurity is a little disjointed,” she said. “We needed someone in a centralized position.”

The task force, through HB 6854, helped create a position in state government to address food insecurity.

“Connecting all the dots will be an overwhelming task but we need to start,” Borer said.

On the federal level, in January President Joe Biden signed into law the Food Donation Improvement Act. That act offers liability protection to companies that fight food insecurity by donating foods or offering them at a reduced price. The bill enhanced the 1996 Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act.

Removing food from the waste stream also is a paramount consideration, given the state’s growing trash crisis. That crisis accelerated last year with the closure of Hartford’s trash-to-energy plant. Connecticut currently ships waste to landfills in Ohio and Pennsylvania.

In addition to recovering edible food, there are several ways to reduce food waste.

Gov. Lamont proposed in March that the state will emphasize converting food scraps into energy and animal feed. He suggested extending requirements that food-producing companies within 20 miles of a food-recycling plant must recycle food scraps separate from other garbage.

Food Rescue US

Food Rescue US, a nationwide organization based in Norwalk, has branches in Fairfield County, the Northwest Corner and Hartford. Haley Schulman volunteered with the Fairfield County chapter after moving home to Connecticut during COVID. She is now Fairfield County co-site director and national site coordinator.

Before the pandemic, she worked in hotel event sales, and saw firsthand, every day, the impact of food waste.

“Food waste was so prevalent and obvious in high-end hotels and events,” Schulman said. “The greatest fear at a hotel is running out of food. As a rule, at hotels I worked in, we prepared 30% more than the attendee count.”

But the hotels where she worked did not donate the excess, for fear of liability. “The answer was always a stark no,” Schulman said. Then she came home and found out her parents were volunteering for Food Rescue US. “I was blown away,” she said.

“I saw an opportunity to pivot to something that solved some societal issues I was passionate about, food waste and the environmental impact of food waste,” she said.

In Connecticut, 342 Food Rescue US food providers — grocery stores, schools, farms, farmers markets, corporate dining facilities, etc. — donate their surplus to 266 social service organizations. In the 12 years the organization has existed, thousands of Connecticut residents have volunteered to do food runs.

Schulman would love to see the mission grow. She said people who want to volunteer to start a Food Rescue US chapter in another part of the state can contact her through foodrescue.us.

Martin wants Haven’s Harvest to grow, too. Her goal is to eventually have a large hub with cold storage. She also wants to change the ways food companies think about recovery.

“That’s the piece that we haven’t looked at as a culture, what do we do with the food at the end. We want to rework the system of planning events, to get people thinking in advance, who will be the food rescue organization we contact?”

People who want to volunteer with Haven’s Harvest, or offer food or request food donations, can visit havensharvest.org. For Food Rescue US, visit foodrescue.us.

Susan Dunne can be reached at sdunne@courant.com.