Food Waste: The World’s Dumbest Problem:

Vox calls food waste “the world’s dumbest problem” and we agree! Every year, the United States is wasting approximately 40% of the food we produce. Meanwhile 42 million Americans are “food insecure”—lacking reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. This just isn’t right! If our country recovered just 30% of what we’re wasting and provide it to people in need, domestic hunger would be eliminated!

More About Food Waste:

If feeding those in need isn’t enough of a reason to keep this food from ending up in the landfill, there’s a lot more at stake—money, water, fertilizer, crop land… the list goes on! Here are a few annual stats to put this country’s rampant waste in perspective:

• $218 billion or 1.3% GDP
• 52 million tons landfill (21% of the landfill waste stream)
• 21% of fresh water usage (11 trillion gallons)
• 19% of fertilizer usage
• 18% of all crop land
• Over 20% of Greenhouse Gas emissions

Alright, We Get It! Food is Getting Wasted! What Are We Going To Do About It!?

Outside2Inside (https://outside2inside.com) is a new Bay Area non-profit organization that is launched to get folks thinking about their food—the “outside” that we put “inside” our bodies on a daily basis! Our goal is to improve access to fresh, healthy food and catalyze communities to fight local food waste. Our first step is creating the Farm2School Ugly Produce Farmer’s Market pilot at a low-income school in the Bay Area.

Farm2School - Free Ugly Produce Farmer’s Market:

Through a partnership with Imperfect Produce, Outside2Inside will launch the Farm2School pilot this fall! Using funds raised here on PlumFund, we plan to create a free Ugly Produce Farmer’s Market with “cosmetically-challenged” fruit & veggies—food that is perfectly good, but not aesthetically suitable for retail. Imperfect Produce will provide both donated & greatly discounted “uglies” for our 10-week pilot program, so we can offer to families at zero cost!

We plan to work with a local school’s administration to set up a weekly after-school produce stand where parents can take what they need and donate what they can to keep our initiative running. Thanks to your contribution, if high-need families have no expendable income, they can still select what produce they want and we’ll get them fed!

Please give what you can and help us make an impact! Anything helps!

Thanks in advance for joining us in fighting waste & feeding people!