Food Rescue Networks and the Food System

Before the COVID-19 pandemic it was widely reported that, in the United States, over 40 percent of food produced was wasted. During the pandemic, news reports have described unprecedented household food waste, up by 30 percent according to Republic Services, one of the largest waste management services in the US (Helmer 2020). But upstream, food waste was, and continues to be, equally problematic. When institutions such as schools and universities, large businesses, restaurants, and other venues must shut down, so too must the food supply chain for those locations. Farmers who produce food for large-scale public use have been unable to redirect their products for grocery markets, and so in many cases their harvests and dairy cannot be used. Elsewhere along the chain, farm and other food laborers (e.g., meat-packing workers, delivery workers) without access to protection and health care cannot continue to pack and deliver food at...