Food rescue organizations stronger together under one roof

Over 400,000 residents in Kansas City alone are without reasonable access to fresh, healthy and affordable foods, living more than half a mile or further from fresh food. And yet, in the United States, around 40% of the food supply ends up in the landfill each year.

The MARC Food Waste Advisory Committee stopped by Kanbe’s Markets warehouse in Kansas City, Missouri, last month to get a first-hand look at how several nonprofit and food rescue operations work together to keep food from wasting away in landfills. 

Kanbe’s, a nonprofit partner for independent grocers (called “Healthy Corner Stores” in Kanbe’s approved network of operating partners), was founded by Max Kaniger in 2016. The nonprofit organizes volunteers to sort through tens of thousands of pounds of produce deemed to be “distressed inventory” — fresh food taken out of stock by large-scale wholesalers. The day of the tour, Kanbe's was hosting a volunteer group from Burns & McDonnell who were sorting produce and moving loaded boxes.

Rescued food is then shipped to Healthy Corner Stores, where it is sold on consignment inside a branded cooler fridge with a price guide listed on the door. Non-seasonal prices are on the front of the door and specialty seasonal items are listed on the inside. 

“We try to keep prices flat,” Kaniger said on the tour. “With everything else fluctuating so much.” 

The consignment format is crucial to ensuring that partner grocers aren’t taking the financial risk of offering fresh produce, as they are not the ones paying for shipments. Pick up of spoiled food is also included in the partnership.

“We get to control the quality, the price, how it’s set up,” Kaniger said. “And we’re swapping food out five days a week.” 

Kanbe’s plans to expand to 130 Healthy Corner Stores — including an expansion across state lines into Wyandotte County, Kansas — by the end of this year. The arrival of three new refrigerated trucks will help make that a reality. And they have reached the million-pound mark for donated food at the halfway point of this year alone.

Food as medicine

The organization is also involved in a "Food as Medicine" program with Children’s Mercy Hospital, where food is delivered weekly to CMH food pantries for families in need of a healthier diet. This, in turn, reduces preventable lifestyle-based illnesses from taxing the region's health care system. The program has now launched a prescriptive food initiative where patients can talk to their doctors or community health workers and, if certain health conditions like a high A1C count or pre-diabetic outcomes are predicted, the patient can enroll to receive $10 in weekly vouchers for use at Kanbe’s produce coolers. The prescriptive food program has been expanded to St. Luke’s Hospital as well.

Up next on the tour, the committee stepped out of the refrigerated storage corridors and into a large warehouse space filled with orange rolling bins. This space is home to KC Can Compost, a nonprofit committed to diverting food scraps from landfills and training people struggling to overcome barriers to employment for work in green industry jobs.

“Last month, we broke a record for us and collected over 200,000 pounds of food waste,” said KC Can Compost Director of Events and Public Programs Karen Ramsey. That’s close to a quarter of their average collected and diverted from the landfill each year (in a single month).

Ramsey then introduced the organization’s solar-powered Community Smart Can campaign. Kansas City is only the third metro in the country, behind New York City and Arlington, Virginia, with such a program. The smart can kiosks have automated lids that unlock for users who are first briefed on proper compost disposal via a smartphone app that can be downloaded via a QR code on the kiosk. Any doors left open send an alert to the organization, and jammed doors can be easily reported by users. The Kansas City area currently has eight active smart cans, though many more are getting ready to go online. This initial rollout was supported in part by a grant from the MARC Solid Waste Management District.

In addition to collecting food scraps from home, the kiosks can help at large events. This summer, they will once again provide compost services at the Kansas City Irish Fest at Crown Center, placing 64 gallon bins throughout the festival grounds alongside trash cans. Ramsey showed off the signs that will be affixed to each bin, easily identifying the materials that belong in them. 

The tour concluded in the reserved stalls of a separate warehouse space, next to a domiciled food truck, Julita’s (a favorite of the Kanbe’s crew). This is where KC Food Hub is based, and Director of Operations Thomas Smith introduced the committee to their efforts. 

KC Food Hub is a farmer cooperative wholesaler and online retailer, working to get locally grown food into the metro’s supply chain while supporting local farmers. The organization was started in 2016 by a small group of local farmers who envisioned the region as a food system that directly served its residents and public institutions.

“Imagine lettuce being picked Monday morning, being delivered to us Monday afternoon and getting to schools by Tuesday morning,” said Smith. “The nutrient density is off the charts on that!” 

Smith pointed out that students are less likely to throw fresh produce away. In fact, according to Smith, Blue Springs schools saw a 40% increase in salad bar usage when offering KC Food Hub’s local products. This allows the district to get affordable produce into schools while making sure partner farmers are paid enough to grow their businesses. KC Food Hub helps farmers worry less about selling their crops or other business facets of their food-growing operation. 

“We let the farmer set their price for product and then we charge a small overhead fee for our services," said Smith.

KC Food Hub is also getting in on the “Food as Medicine” program, partnering with community health center Vibrant Health in Kansas City, Kansas, as well as Heartland Community Health Center in Lawrence. The organization supported a nine-month cohort last year that saw, on average, a two-point drop in A1C levels for participants.

Between theirs and Kanbe’s inventory needs, produce intake at the warehouse is enough to nearly fill all four of the refrigerated truck trailers the committee toured next. KC Food Hub lovingly calls their two trailers “Bert and Ernie.”

“If you come back on Monday, these will be nearly full,” Smith said. 

He let the tour group peek inside and feel the crisp, air-conditioned surroundings and revealed that it costs about $25,000 a piece to convert a standard truck trailer into a refrigerated unit suitable for their needs. 

“Our partners at 620 Fab Co turned these around in no time … and, if we need it, they’ll come to us for free to fix them,” said Smith. 

All of this retrofitting and logistics has paid off for Smith and KC Food Hub. Last year, the organization hit a milestone, surpassing a half million in sales. 

“We made more for our farmers last year than in the first five years combined,” said Smith.

KC Food Hub also allows no produce to go to waste while in its care. If food is not up to visual standards for local schools or other wholesale customers (but still nutrient-rich), they’ll supply Kanbe’s. If produce goes bad, it gets sent next door to KC Can Compost to be turned into soil-boosting compost.

On the tour, the group also saw operating headquarters for KC Urban Produce Push (formerly After the Harvest), which boasts a record of rescuing over 33 million pounds of produce since 2014 — partnering with neighbor Kanbe’s markets to get edible rescued produce sold. The organization also brings in volunteers to sort inventory and, as After the Harvest did for many years, brings people along on "gleaning" trips, where leftover crops on local farms are harvested for people in need.