Food Rescue of Northwest Michigan distributes 10,000 pounds of food daily

Food Rescue of Northwest Michigan is moving about 10,000 pounds of food a day, enough to send roughly five tons into more than 70 pantries and meal sites across Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Leelanau and Kalkaska counties. Demand has grown as grocery prices stay high and more households turn to emergency food help.

Taylor Moore said rising food costs and the loss of some assistance programs have pushed more people toward pantries, adding pressure to the local safety net that serves Traverse City and the rest of Grand Traverse County. Its goal is to keep usable food out of the trash and move it to families who need it, instead of letting donors and distributors handle the extra food alone.

The nonprofit has operated since 2008 and has distributed almost 26 million pounds of food since then. Its current annual volume is about 2.6 million pounds, enough to make about 1.8 million meals. More than 42% of what it distributes is fruits and vegetables, and the operation diverts more than 2.1 million pounds of food from landfills each year.

Daily deliveries were about 7,000 pounds a few years ago, making the current total roughly 3,000 pounds higher each day. The regional system now depends on farms, grocery stores, bakeries and other donors to keep pantries stocked.

That system includes produce that would otherwise be lost for cosmetic reasons. At King Orchards in Antrim County, the organization picked up extra asparagus that was healthy but too thin or too thick to meet market standards. A June 4 workshop at King Orchards, organized by the Michigan Sustainable Business Forum, covered reducing food waste and fighting hunger in northern Michigan, and King Orchards also works publicly with Food Rescue and The Manna Food Project to channel surplus produce to families in need.