Note: this is an updated version of an episode released in April 2021.
In this episode of Nourish by MN350, host Lisa Chou talks about food waste with Danielle Piraino, Produce Programs Coordinator from The Food Group, and Patrick Smith, a former collective member with Sisters Camelot. Both guests talk about why we produce so much extra food in the first place, the challenges of rescuing “wasted” food from farms and warehouses, and how food waste can be one of the solutions to food insecurity and a path toward strengthening our community and building a more just and equitable food system.
Stay tuned to the end to hear a bonus update from The Food Group’s Executive Director and how they’ve adapted their services to our second year of the pandemic and ways for you to support their work.
Full transcript available here.
Note: this is an updated version of an episode released in April 2021.
In this episode of Nourish by MN350, host Lisa Chou talks about food waste with Danielle Piraino, Produce Programs Coordinator from The Food Group, and Patrick Smith, a former collective member with Sisters Camelot. Both guests talk about why we produce so much extra food in the first place, the challenges of rescuing “wasted” food from farms and warehouses, and how food waste can be one of the solutions to food insecurity and a path toward strengthening our community and building a more just and equitable food system.
Stay tuned to the end to hear a bonus update from The Food Group’s Executive Director and how they’ve adapted their services to our second year of the pandemic and ways for you to support their work.
Full transcript available here.
Episode 9 - A Cup That Overflows
Sun, 11/1 1:52PM • 1:37:12
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, food, community, Camelot, sisters, volunteers, organizations, headwaters, compost, farm, produce, groceries, system, big
SPEAKERS
Danielle Piraino, Patrick Smith, Lisa Chou
Hi, Lisa Chou here. We are featuring this previously recorded episode with guests Danielle Piraino from The Food Group and Patrick Smith from Sister’s Camelot in recognition of International Food Loss and Waste Reduction Day on September 29. I was also able to chat with Sophia Lenarz-Coy, Executive Director from The Food Group to get a quick update on all the awesome work The Food Group is doing; that conversation is featured at the end of this rebroadcast. With that let’s get into the episode!
Hello and welcome to Nourish. I'm your host Lisa Chou, and we are coming to you from the original homeland of the Dakota and Anishinnabeg peoples, in what is now called Minnesota. I'm actually calling from Chicago, which is the original lands of the Ojibwe, Odawa and Potawatomi tribes, as well as several other indigenous groups. Today we are joined by Patrick Smith, collective member of Sisters’ Camelot and Danielle Piraino, the Produce Programs Coordinator for The Food Group to learn more about their work in reducing food waste and to hear their thoughts on creating a more just food system. Sisters’ Camelot is a nonprofit organization with a mission to promote sustainability, strengthen community and raise awareness about food justice. They've been giving out free organic food twice a week throughout the Twin Cities for over 20 years. By transforming a waste stream into a resource, Sisters’ Camelot has offered people, who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford it, the opportunity to eat healthy, organic whole foods. Patrick is a collective member. Welcome, Patrick, and thank you for being here.
Patrick Smith 02:33
Thank you.
Lisa Chou 02:35
The Food Group is a local nonprofit focused on using nutritious food to strengthen the community. They are working at the intersection of food access, equity and nutrition issues related to food and hunger in 32 counties across Minnesota and Wisconsin. Their work breaks down barriers to growing good food locally and getting good food to those who need it most. Danielle Piraino is the Produce Programs Coordinator for The Food Group. Thank you, Danielle, for joining us today.
Danielle Piraino 02:58
Thanks for having me.
Lisa Chou 03:01
One extra note for listeners is that this episode was recorded in November 2020. Although there are some references about that earlier time, the work of The Food Group and Sisters’ Camelot are still very relevant today. So, Patrick and Danielle, we invited you here today to discuss food waste, specifically, how Sisters’ Camelot and The Food Group are using what is essentially a waste stream to strengthen communities and meet the demand for food. Before we get into how your work strengthens communities, let's talk about what exactly your work is. So for Patrick, can you tell us a little bit about Sisters’ Camelot and what you're doing out there in the community?
Patrick Smith 03:38
So Sisters’ Camelot is a volunteer-run nonprofit organization that's been around since 1997. We started in South Minneapolis where some people who worked at a local food distributor saw how much food that was, say, two weeks from expiration just being thrown away. Because they had such a large quantity of it, they just couldn't get it to the store in time before it hit the expiration date. So it was still good. Generally, it's perfectly ripe food, sometimes packaged food. And so some people that work there were like, hey, let's just get a bus. Let's take out all the seats, let's go out on the street and see if we can give this food away. It was organic food. The idea is that we want to be able to give people who are poor people who would fall through the cracks, maybe somebody that's dealing with mental health issues or family crisis across all cultures. And we've been doing it for about 23 years now. We've had a lot of changes of volunteers and organizational structure. And it's really kind of developed in a very natural way. We are collectively based so it's not like one person is deciding how things are run, we have to come to a consensus, we have to agree on who gets the food, and how we divide up how much we have, because it's different. A lot of our food that we get is based on cycles that we have no control over as far as like which avocados are in season or which crops are in season or when there is too much of a specific type of produce. And so sometimes we'll get 600 pounds of oranges and if we still have a lot leftover, how do we compost them, make sure that those resources are put back into the system and not just put into the trash, into a landfill. And so in a lot of ways, it's trying to create a feedback system where if we're not composting ourselves, that we're linking up with state composting systems to be able to make sure that food—what is considered waste—is brought back into compost, which goes into gardens which helps enrich our cities, through local gardeners through local gardens to farmers markets. Because honestly, compost is a really great resource. And Sisters’ Camelot, hopefully, will be a part of that. We serve a lot of different people, from immigrants from Honduras, from Somalia, from Southeast Asia, people who have grown up their entire lives here and never left Minnesota. It's a really big community. And we've gotten to know a lot of people over the years, we work with a lot of different community organizations and churches in the area. So I think, you know, we are not a perfect organization, but we work with our communities, we're always looking for volunteers. If you want to check us out, you can check us out at sisterscamelot.org.
Lisa Chou 06:32
Thanks for that. I'm really amazed by how long Sisters’ Camelot has been around and all the creative ways they've solved a lot of these issues and been able to adapt with COVID. The Food Group operates in a much wider area. You're out there in 32 counties across Minnesota and Wisconsin, fighting hunger and nourishing our community. What does your work look like? And how do you go about capturing food waste and redistributing it?
Danielle Piraino 06:59
Yeah, so, the Food Group is primarily a food bank, and has historically functioned as one. But we're definitely much more than just a food bank and we run several programs that function under The Food Group. We have our warehouse in New Hope, where we are busy distributing nourishing foods to our 170 food shelf partners and meal programs across Minnesota and Wisconsin. And in addition to our functioning warehouse, we run several programs. We run retail food sales programs, Fare For All and the Twin Cities Mobile Market.These are just two different ways that we are filling in the gap; getting nourishing food to folks in non-traditional ways. And then we also have an organic vegetable farm in Marine on St. Croix called Big River Farms. This is a farm incubator, so folks from many walks of life can come to the farm and essentially incubate their farm businesses. Traditionally, Big River Farms has incubated farms that are run by folks who are underrepresented in the farming community, and it's a really special place. And then the program that I run, and that I'll be speaking mostly about today, is Produce Programs. And so I like to say that Produce Programs are sort of the bridge between the local food system, local growers, and the hunger relief world. We do a couple of things: we glean food, we grow food, and then we do sort of traditional food recovery from farmers markets. And that's what I'll be talking about today.
Lisa Chou 09:09
Great. Thank you so much. So, how do you go about distributing all of the food you either generate through your food bank or through your gleaning programs? And how do you determine where that food goes, and who gets it?
Danielle Piraino 09:24
Yeah, so I think with our distribution in the warehouse, we have a lot of really long-standing partnerships with so many agencies and meal programs, really, throughout the state. And I would say that the programs that I manage, are really newer programs, and the way that we've built relationships with both the farmers that we're recovering food from, and the food shelf partners and meal programs, has been kind of through digging through our long-standing relationships, and really asking folks in the community who's interested in taking part in receiving rescued produce. And with the gleaning program, we work with about 10 different agency partners, who are receiving the food, and with probably about the same number of farmers and orchards as well. At the very basic level, we sent out a survey to a lot of our partners and asked who wanted to take part in this. So that's how we sort of got our core group of community gleaning partners. And I would say that it's evolved over the course of like, the last three years really, so that's kind of influenced our timeline for running this gleaning program. So, as the seasons have gone on, it's sort of been made clear, like, which of our agency partners really benefit from getting this produce and which agency partners it doesn't end up working out for, so we're really adaptable and can just decide, you know, from season to season who is interested in our recovered or gleaned produce and how we can make it work best for them. Because ultimately, at the end of the day, it's about what our agencies want, and what kind of recovered product will work for them. And then, in terms of delivering, we actually, for the produce programs, we don't typically use a lot of the warehouse infrastructure or drivers. So it's a small team, that's myself and one other person. And we have a refrigerated van. And so we drive out to farms, and we drive to the Minneapolis Farmers’ Market in this van, and we pack it up with whatever we can fit. And then we do the distributions on deliveries by hand. So it gives us a lot of good face time with our agencies and farmers. And we get to, like build authentic community this way. And it's just a really nice way to see it go from source, which in our case is often a farm field, to an agency and into their cooler. So that's pretty much how we function in this small arm of the organization. Again, it's a very large organization. So I'll just be speaking to my expertise.
In terms of how we select agencies that receive our recovered food, The Food Group recognizes that, in our community, resources are not equitably distributed. And because of this, we really prioritize selecting BIPOC run or BIPOC served agencies, and are really in the business of showing up for people when they need it. And this summer, we got to work with Powderhorn Park, and their wonderful distribution that they had weekly on Fridays. We really sent pounds of fresh, beautiful, local farm produce to Powderhorn, as well as some other items. And just really prioritizing a lot of these pop up food distribution sites that were popping up all over the city to address some rising community concerns. And it's been really lovely to get to work with folks doing grassroots organizing to get food to their communities; people who are suffering a disproportionate amount due to COVID-19. And also the food apartheid that has been created in a lot of communities and in particular South Minneapolis, where a lot of grocery stores were closed throughout the summer in the aftermath of the killing of George Floyd.
Lisa Chou 14:28
Thank you Danielle for sharing about how The Food Group conducts its work through the lenses of racial equity and food justice in a central and intentional way. The killing of George Floyd shed a light on how far we still have to go as a community and country to address racial justice and so much more. My next question for Patrick relates to how Sisters’ Camelot facilitates decision-making with a more collectivist approach. So Patrick, how does Sisters’ Camelot make decisions within your group of volunteers in a collective way and how do you decide where food gets distributed?
Patrick Smith 14:59
So we have weekly meetings with our collective to decide where the future is going to be over the next month. With COVID, we had to reduce it down based upon the people and the sites that were hosting our food share, as far as what they were comfortable with, what our volunteers were comfortable with, and how we could keep people socially distancing. So in order to work with our different organizations, again, we had to basically restructure our entire way of working to make sure we could follow health safety guidelines. As far as another part of our program is we have a kitchen bus. It's like an old Bluebird bus that has been converted to a kitchen that's fully up to code. And we've been cooking food at the George Floyd Memorial up until the last week or so, due to winter winterization concerns because in the winter on our bus the water lines can't run. At the beginning of COVID, we put a call out for immunocompromised people who were elderly; people who couldn't go out and said, Hey, do you need food? We'll make deliveries; we had volunteers delivering prepackaged bags of groceries to people in Minneapolis and St. Paul. And we were able to get volunteers. bicyclists, couriers people that normally deliver packages on their bicycles delivering bags of groceries all over South Minneapolis. But now that we've slowly become more accustomed to COVID, as far as the routines that we've had to change, we haven't been doing bike couriers because it's winter. So in a lot of ways we have to divide what we have based upon how many people that come each day. So if we only have a limited number of avocados, or cereal, or chocolate, or something fancy, we try to make sure that even people at the end of the line still get something good. We don't want somebody that comes to the front taking everything—we try to evenly distribute good things in each bag, so that people can go home and feel good about actually getting something that they wouldn't be able to afford, products that they would never see. That's one of the amazing things about Sisters is that we get to see food from different packaged items to organic produce. What I really like about what Danielle was saying is that we have authentic community, that is, in a normal setting, when people go to like a food shelf, you have to have your ID, you have to sit in a cramped room. We know that people may be in difficult situations. And we don't want to be invasive in people's lives. That's all about sustainability and supporting the community and having an open community and being able to have an authentic community like Danielle was talking about. so that people can have a sense of a family. You know, a lot of people don't have that. And so having a community where people will come with their kids, the kids are running around having fun having a good time. But yet, it's a safe community, people are watching what's happening, people are seeing what's going on. And we see familiar faces, we see people we know. and so because we've been doing this so long we have a lot of resources in the community we can reach out to and that's really a blessing for us; it feels really good to be able to give and we couldn't give without the distributors. And people say where did you get it, out of a dumpster? And we’re like no, it never goes into the dumpster. It comes from a giant refrigerated warehouse. That inside is like five stories tall filled with shells, people driving around forklifts and we show up with our truck and it gets loaded up. And then we drive it to the site. Our volunteers, you know lift huge bags of onions, huge bags of potatoes, huge packs of carrots, peppers, bananas, you know, anything you can think of. And it works out. Strangely. I think it's because we've been doing this so long, there's this sort of intuitive feeling of how things are supposed to work. And are there conflicts? Absolutely. But we learn how to resolve them in ways potentially, and not everybody's gonna feel good about every conflict that occurs. But the idea is that we can work together as a community, and we can come back together and we can find ways to work around issues. And so one of the things about Sisters is learning to not hold grudges from the past, which is really important for the growth of the community. And you know, we drive about twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, those are the days that we generally have volunteers who organize what we're doing. We do have a lot of packaging, we do have a lot of cardboard, like all of those boxes, all the food comes in has to be broken down, has to be organized and has to be recycled. So it's a lot of handiwork. And it's a lot of I don't know, I guess you'd say busy work, but we've learned how to do it. And you know, it's funny, like I've been breaking down boxes my whole life pretty much and eventually got to a point where I started making artwork out of cardboard. So it's a resource that's just everywhere. And so, in a lot of ways, cardboard is kind of like the lifeblood of our food system: without cardboard, like how can we transport a lot of these items, but plastic too, so we have to consider how do we reuse these plastic materials in different ways? How can we reuse this cardboard in different ways? How can we take advantage of it? No, you can use cardboard in composting as far as creating layers in between food. One of the things that we work with a lot is red worms and using red worms to sort of break down compost faster to generate nitrogen, and fertilizer in the form of worm tea, which is basically like worm castings or worm poop and plants love this stuff. We generate a large amount of compost from Sisters, and we've worked with a lot of garden organizations in the past, and we're always looking for new garden organizations to work with in the future, to help develop composting systems, or to help you generate more nutrients to sort of expand gardens to get more greenery out there. In my mind, it's the philosophy of tending the garden you can touch You don't have to, you know, go to another country to make the world a better place, you want to dig your roots down where you are, dig them down as deeply as you can and touch the people around you, and build a community around you. Like there's no utopia out there, like utopia is inside of you. Like if you can shift your perspective into looking at your, your community differently, your surroundings differently, it's like the light doesn't come from outside of you, it comes from inside of you, and radiates towards everyone around you in the in the things that you do. And the love that you show towards other people and your actions. And so we have to constantly be striving to become better people. And in the way that nature constantly strives to grow. despite all adversity
Lisa Chou 22:38
Yeah, thanks, you covered so many things. I really liked that you brought up how a lot of the food you rescue comes from warehouses, and it's really considered wasted because those organizations and businesses don't have the logistics that you have to distribute this food. And maybe some businesses, like Imperfect Produce, do have those logistics, but you do what they do with a much more justice and community focus lens where you're redistributing this food for free to people who wouldn't have otherwise received it, among all of the other things like worm composting and, and nurturing the community in all sorts of other ways.
Lisa Chou 23:27
Welcome back to Nourish by MN350. I'm your host, Lisa Chou, and we've been talking to Danielle Piraino of The Food Group and Patrick Smith of Sisters’ Camelot, who are doing fascinating work turning food waste into a valuable resource for communities. Here on MN350’s Food Systems Team we usually talk about food waste through the lens of climate change, where wasted food accounts for roughly 8% of human caused greenhouse gas emissions. But that's obviously not the only reason to address food waste. Reducing food waste can ease pressure on resources of all kinds, and enable communities to more effectively meet demands for food. So the first question I'd like Danielle to cover is why this work is necessary. The description of The Food Group’s Big River Farms program says that “[it] strengthens our community by building a more sustainable and just food system”. And I think that's something we all have in common here between MN350, Sisters’ Camelot and The Food Group. We all understand that the publicly funded food system that we have is not sustainable or just and it doesn't factor in the health of the communities that depend on it. Can you give us sort of a big picture view of why the system creates so much extra food in the first place? And where it's all coming from?
Danielle Piraino 24:40
Sure. So, why extra food is created, at least in terms of our regional farms, is that farm planning for the season is to plant enough for your markets and some extra, because we know that pests and disease and weather can all really destroy crops. And so planting extra is just part of a normal farm business plan. And often, when there isn't a pest or disease pressure, there is an abundance of food. And so that is sort of where we come in and are able to harvest a lot of the excess infield produce that the firms don't have a market for, for XYZ reason; maybe it's because it's imperfect, maybe it has some blemishes, maybe it's too small to sell to their normal wholesale market. Or too large for that matter. We got these humongous turnips, like the size of my head, this season. So we're sort of in the business of like, harvesting the food that doesn't always make the cut into crops and things like that, but is amazing, nourishing beautiful food nonetheless. And it's really, for us, necessary to have this land at Big River Farms, and to steward the land in a way that is aligned with our values, and so having systems like cover cropping and land use planning, and planting native perennials, and not using inorganic pesticides or herbicides are really important to The Food Group and to Big River Farms. I'm the piece of land in Marine on St. Croix is beautiful and is really cared for deeply by all of the farmers in the farmer training program; and the staff at The Food Group who run Big River Farms work really hard to ensure the integrity of the land as part of the model.
Lisa Chou 27:06
That's great.Thanks for kind of adding on to why this work is necessary and how you're solving that Danielle. So when it comes to filling in the gaps created by the industrial food system, The Food Group has come up with a wide range of solutions, including the Twin Cities Mobile Market, which is a converted bus that can go into neighborhoods and bring food to where it's needed. Patrick, the idea of a food bus is actually where Sisters’ Camelot started 23 years ago. So can you tell us more about the Sisters’ Camelot kitchen bus? Like why did you choose this model way back then for getting food to the community?
Patrick Smith 27:41
I guess the reason why the bus is because there was just so much need in the community. There are so many different communities in the Twin Cities that need food that don't have access to organic food, that are just underserved for multiple different reasons. And so when we had the bus, we went to random locations, because we would just get an overwhelming response from people. So the idea was doing random acts of kindness in different areas like North Minneapolis, Minneapolis, and St. Paul, like the Brian Coyle Center; and where there is a very dense Somali population community from East Africa, too. And getting to know these communities over time. I think in a lot of ways, the bus was really about connecting between the different communities, and connecting resources with different communities that maybe a lot of people would never see, but the need is greater. And so we have to learn to make inroads into communities that do need help, that we normally wouldn't interact with. And find ways to find common ground, even if we don't even speak the same language. Like, you know, we can still share the same food, we can listen to each other's music, and we can know each other's cuisines, and, you know, learn how to become a more culturally-accepting community. So I think that's the main focus of the bus is that we wanted to be a connecting resource. And in a lot of ways, I think our food industry is like a cup that overflows. And so, you know, when you have scarcity, and you suddenly get an opportunity to feed yourself, people oftentimes will gorge on things, or they'll take more than they need, because they've been in a mindset of scarcity for so long. And so in a lot of ways, I think people that are impoverished can get into that state of mind, the idea is to bring forth the traveling community that can really help people who are who don't have a reliable food source to sort of settle into a state of calmness and not get into that scarcity state of mind.
Lisa Chou 29:11
Wow, I really resonate with your metaphor of our food industry as a cup that overflows and it’s such a great way to connect the dots between food waste and food hunger. In places where there’s a constant surplus of food, like in grocery stores and food warehouses, it’s just common sense to get it to those who don’t have food before it goes bad. But it takes real work and logistics to bridge that distance from where food is abundant to where it’s scarce, which Sisters’ Camelot and The Food Group do so well.
So my follow up question for this section to both of you is, where do you see the biggest gaps in food waste reduction work? And how are Sisters’ Camelot and The Food Group working to close these gaps?
Danielle Piraino 30:33
Yeah, so for us, because we focus on recovery of unprocessed produce, particularly raw veggies and fruit, a big gap in the food waste reduction work that we do is the lack of processing being done. I really like what was said about, you know, it being like a cup that overflows, especially in the peak of the growing season. there's such an abundance of produce growing on regional farms. And for us to be able to preserve these foods over a longer span of time would be really amazing and is sort of the direction that I hope we can sort of move into, but we're not a certified kitchen. There isn't really an easy way for us to process the raw produce, especially during the height of the growing season. Because, you know, we're a small team and we're just out there doing the food recovery work. But some potential solutions that we've identified are working more closely with, with meal programs. So we partnered with Minnesota Central Kitchen this season, which was really awesome, and we got to move a lot of this overabundance of the same product, like zucchini is a popular or maybe unpopular example. But we got to move a lot of excess produce into their kitchen space, and they're doing a hot meal program and it gets distributed out to the community. And we also work with Gatherings Cafe in Minneapolis, and they have a meal program where they're cooking meals for indigenous elders. And so this has sort of been like a potential solution. But yeah, I would just say, a big gap for our work is that a lot of the same produce pops out of the ground at once. And to be able to harness and preserve that produce, whether it's canning, or freezing and packing to extend shelf life, we would really be able to distribute to our agency partners, and to the community throughout the fall and winter and early spring. So that's something that feels like a big gap and something that I would love to explore more solutions for.
Lisa Chou 33:00
Yeah that's a big challenge with having one plant ready to harvest all at one time; how do you distribute that much and satisfy people's desire to even eat that much of it at once. And, and sometimes we think of processing as a bad thing, at least in greater food industry terms, but canning, freezing, packing and other ways, it's like the minimal amount of processing you can do so you can still eat local food throughout the rest of the year in the easiest way.
Danielle Piraino 33:32
Yeah, I think it's critical. Processing, I think, does have sort of this negative connotation. But processing is really just like manipulating the food. You know, cutting it, freezing it. I mean, you can definitely get into some unknown territory and more like dangerous processing territory. But if we can find ways to preserve the food that we are covering on farms and at farmer's markets in a way that we can afford to do that would be super.
Lisa Chou 34:04
So to Patrick, where do you see the biggest gaps in food waste reduction work and how are you and Sisters’ Camelot working to close those?
Patrick Smith 34:12
I guess like two areas. I mean, I would definitely agree with Danielle about source refrigeration. During the summer months, we don't really have anywhere where we can store food overnight. And we were looking at potentially getting a refrigerated truck, which would be amazing. We could rescue more food from the distributor, save things overnight, and use them during the spring, summer and fall months in different kinds of events and different locations. On a side note, we are always looking for new organizations to work with as far as to prepare food for or to host food events. So if you're willing to work with us, just contact us sisterscamelot.org, or on our Facebook group which you can reach at our website. But another main thing is preparing; preparing food in a way that people can see and it makes sense. A lot of people don't know how to cook. It sounds kind of ridiculous, but if you're looking at a poor community, it's easier just to go to McDonald's. If you grew up going to McDonald's and Hardee's or you know, Wendy's, Arby's, whatever it is a Culvers you know, you spend $10 you get some food, it's easy to not think about it, but you're gonna have long term health effects from it, which may not, you know, resolve until much later and that affects primarily poor communities. And so one of the things we are working on is trying to find a way to teach really easy cooking lessons, like cooking with adults with kids and showing people, okay, you know, here's some of the things we have today: these people over here are cooking some of the stuff, this is how you cook it, well, add a little bit of vinegar and a little bit salt, this is how you have it, it only takes five minutes, and then it's cheaper. But the idea is to get people at a young age interested in cooking food and learning spices, and in a way that they can really latch onto and find benefit in. Because in a lot of ways, I don't think there's any way that this is really being taught. They don't even understand how to prepare it. And that may sound silly, but there are a lot of people who have very specific foods, they'll eat and they won't eat, and maybe they never even heard of, or even thought about eating. And so how do you sprinkle some seeds that maybe will grow among people at a young age so that they can, like, maybe cook their parents a meal and you know, improve their connection with their parents a little, or you know, that they learn how to, you know, make some food with a boyfriend or girlfriend or their significant other. Because economically, if you can learn to cook from produce, and from veggies, fruits and vegetables, you can save a lot of money. I think a big gap is about learning how to save resources, not just for ourselves, but for our community; helping find more dynamic and creative ways of being able to, you know, get the nutrients to get the resources we need in order to to support each other, I think there's something about a home cooked meal that just feeds the soul. But you can create opportunities for people to see different options that maybe they didn't think about and become more open to different options, especially when it comes to food. And I think that's a big thing because there's a whole host of fruits and vegetables that people have never even heard of. And so in a lot of ways, the fruits and vegetables that come through Sisters’ Camelot are very determined by seasonal growing patterns. And very interestingly, when they had a trade tariff on Mexico, suddenly, avocados went up in price and suddenly people weren't buying avocados. And then two weeks later, we had boxes and boxes and boxes and boxes of avocados. And so it's interesting, there are patterns. And my thought is that there are patterns with the way in which food is grown, that, like, if we can learn to take advantage of these patterns of waste, to analyze and figure out how we can distribute this food in the most efficient way possible across the city, and that would save a lot of time in ways that maybe people wouldn't even think about.
Lisa Chou 38:37
Welcome back. We've been talking about food waste here on the podcast today with Patrick Smith, from Sisters’ Camelot and Danielle Piraino from The Food Group. Danielle and Patrick, we spent some time now on how your organizations are strengthening our communities through reducing food waste. Now, I'd like to ask: how can we, as food justice activists, help meet some of the challenges in this space? Danielle, what kind of structural support does The Food Group need to continue to do the work you do? Can you share some about how you currently finance all the work you do? And maybe better forms of financial support to keep the Food Group going strong?
Danielle Piraino 39:15
Sure. The Food Group is funded by a mix of revenues. In the past, we've had an $11 million budget. This year, we had an $18 million budget because of the generous contributions of individuals and foundations that have really helped us to address the COVID-19 pandemic and just the rise in hunger that only increases as we move into winter. So typically, about 35% of our budget is from community contributions. So that's foundations, other organizations and individuals. 25% is from earned revenue. So we have self-sustaining programs like our grocery sales through Fare For All and the Mobile Market buses. And then 40% is “in-kind,” so donated food from food distributors and farms. And so I would say that a direct ask from us is if you're able to contribute financially, that's something that we're only going to rely on sort of more and more as we move into winter. And the need for emergency food is just continuing. And if you want to donate directly on our website, you can do that at TheFoodGroupMN.org/donate. And the cool thing is that you can designate where you want your contribution to go on our website. So for example, you could select the Harvest for the Hungry program, which is a program that I run, where we purchase second quality produce at $1 a pound from local farms, and then distribute it to our agency partners. So you can specify where you want your donation to go. Otherwise, it will go to other wonderful programs that we have at The Food Group. Another way to get involved is to volunteer with us. So throughout the winter, we'll have warehouse volunteer shifts, you can also sign up for those on our website, TheFoodGroupMN.org. We're coming to the end of the growing season in our region in Minnesota, but during the growing season, you can volunteer with us when we do on-farm gleaning. And Farmers Market recovery at the Minneapolis Farmers Market. And those are really fun ways to get involved. I often tell folks: if you want to get out to local farms and you know, see them, it's an easy way to do that without committing an entire summer to working on a farm. It's a nice way to see the breadth of the food system, from the good folks growing it to the good folks distributing it and the good folks eating it.
Lisa Chou 42:09
Great, thanks. And then do you have any social media you’d like listeners to also follow?
Danielle Piraino 42:30
We have a Facebook page, The Food Group, and we also have an Instagram which, I think is also called The Food Group, or The Food Group MN. Following us on Facebook would be a great way to stay updated on what’s happening and ways to get involved.
Lisa Chou 42:38
Those opportunities to get involved definitely sound fun and the power to designate how our donations are used is awesome! Now to switch to Patrick: can you talk more about how your financing works, and how you’ve been able to support this continued supply of free food to these communities who didn’t have access to begin with for over 20 years?
Patrick Smith 42:57
Primarily, it's grassroots donations from local people, or people that we fed in the past; maybe we fed them when they were a teenager or in their 20s.We are all donation based, we get a lot of different donations from a lot of different sources. Some people have programs at their places of work, where they can donate a small amount of their check to us. We get donations via PayPal and we get checks in the mail. We are continually looking for grants from other organizations, both state grants, and federal grants. I think it's one of our greatest strengths is that because we've been around for such a long time people know about us and people know about our organization. And so we're always looking for new funding resources. And every bit of funding that we get from people, whether it's like $10, or $20, is greatly appreciated—it allows us to feed people, it allows us to feed people who are homeless, to feed children, to feed their mothers, or fathers, or to feed their elders. It feels really good to me to just see elders from Little Earth, get good types of food today who maybe have never, ever had the chance to get it, maybe because of mobility, maybe it's because of finances. But you know, every dollar that we're given, we are able to move forward to the people we serve. We're an entirely volunteer run organization, like none of us are getting paid. But we're gonna keep feeding people because people are hungry. And there are children who are hungry; there are homeless children that are hungry and they’re all on state assistance. And, you know, the way that we fight that is by trying to expand the organizations we work with, to expand the people we work with, and finding new communities that are in need. So you can donate on sisterscamelot.org/donate where there is a PayPal, or there's a PO box you can mail checks to. And we're always looking for volunteers, whether it's organizing or lifting or even cooking; our cooking is primarily done in the spring, summer fall. But we're always willing to work with organizations if they have a kitchen space as well, because we have access to a lot of produce, we can bring food to cook. So if you have an organization, or you have an event, but you need to find food, or people to help cook, and it aligns with our organization, please contact us on our website and talk to us and plan ahead of time. If you want to check us out, you can check us out at sisterscamelot.org. You can donate there, if you like what we're doing, whether it be through PayPal or sending a check. You can also link up with our Facebook page, which you can find through our website, and that has the different locations we go to. And you can set up to volunteer if you want to see more in depth of how our process works. It's a lot of physical work, we have to haul everything off the truck, we have to organize everything, put everything on tables, bag everything. It doesn't sound like a lot, but basically you're doing like a full day's worth of grocery stocking in a matter of like two hours. And so you'll definitely feel it by the end of the day. But you know, even if you can't lift a lot, that's fine, we have a lot of organization that needs to happen too. So a lot of things just need to be parsed out and organized. So it's definitely an interesting process. And if there are organizations you know about that we can work with, that you think would be a good fit, let us know that too. And, you know, we're also always looking for artists to do different projects. So, you know, whatever skill set you have, just send us a line. We'll see where we can go from there. And hopefully it'll be a good fit.
Lisa Chou 47:15
Does Sisters’ Camelot have any social media channels that listeners could follow?
Patrick Smith 47:21
Um, let's see. Currently, we have our website, our Facebook page, we have Instagram—Instagram.com/sisterscamelot. We're also on Pinterest. So that's the three main ones we have now. We're gonna be having more in the future.
Lisa Chou 47:38
Thanks Patrick for sharing those opportunities for our listeners to support the great work that Sisters’ Camelot is doing. So one last thing I could drop in here for our listeners is that at MN350 we support a piece of legislation called the Headwaters Community Food and Water Bill, which would provide funding and infrastructure for a resilient, regenerative and inclusive food economy, or to borrow a phrase from the mission of Sisters’ Camelot, “an economy based upon cooperation between local autonomous communities.” In January 2021, The Food Group officially joined MN350’s Headwaters Coalition, which is incredible. Thanks for the support and we’re so excited to partner with you. Would you mind telling us a little bit about how The Food Group could play a role in the food economy created by the Headwaters Bill? Or maybe similarities in the values that the Headwaters Bill focuses on with the values that The Food Group holds?
Danielle Piraino 48:31
Yeah, the Headwaters Bill is really such an innovative and creative and really like down to earth bill. And I feel like we're happy to support it. I'm down to earth, I guess in more ways than one. But, yeah, so I think that a lot of the infrastructure of The Food Group really jives already with some of the goals of the Headwaters Bill. We are continuing to use climate adaptive farming strategies at our farm at Big River Farms. We're continuing to support regional farmers by paying for their products that will go into the hunger relief system. And we continue to be a voice that supports and encourages bills that stand for what we stand for. I think that the infrastructure that we have, like our warehouse, our storing capacity, our ability to move food to where it needs to be, having access to this wonderful big farm, are all ways that we could fit into the structure of the resilient food system that the Headwaters Bill envisions. And I feel excited about imagining that even more. I know that one of the pieces of the bill is around preserving food, and that being a gap that I see, I feel like working on food preservation is something that I could also envision The Food Group, at least produce programs, working on. And then again, just listening to the community needs and, and really having our values come from the community. And we also have a teaching garden at The Food Group in New Hope. Which is also part of reconnecting folks back to growing food and to the land, and so utilizing that space for that reason.
Lisa Chou 50:34
Wow, thank you so much for that. It definitely is exciting imagining the food system our communities could create together by passing legislation like the Headwaters Bill and with strong organizations like the two of you are part of. Sisters’ Camelot and The Food Group are out there solving problems that are created by our current publicly funded food system. And hopefully the Headwaters Bill would establish a publicly funded food economy that includes the solutions, rather than relying on outside organizations or charity to fill in the gaps. In other words, the Headwaters Bill would fund organizations like The Food Group and Sisters’ Camelot and make it possible to replicate their work in communities throughout Minnesota. So one more action our listeners can take after checking out opportunities with the Sisters’ Camelot and The Food Group is to visit MN350.org/Headwaters and sign the pledge to support MN350’s Headwaters campaign or if you've already signed it, take one of the other actions we have listed there. We try to keep that updated with new opportunities to support the Headwaters Bill as they come up. So that's our show for today. Sisters’ Camelot is doing some truly unique work to promote sustainability, strengthen communities and raise awareness about food justice. Patrick Smith, thank you for sharing your story with us today.
Patrick Smith 51:46
Thank you. And check us out at sisterscamelot.org or on our Sisters’ Camelot Facebook group. Thank you.
Lisa Chou 51:54
And Danielle Piraino, it is inspiring to hear all ofs the ways that The Food Group is breaking down barriers to getting good local food to those who need it most and addressing equity and nutrition by redefining waste. Thank you for sharing that with us.
Danielle Piraino 52:07
Yeah, thanks so much for having me. It was an honor. Thanks.
Lisa Chou 52:12
To our listeners, you can learn more about our guests and the incredible work they're doing at TheFoodGroupMN.org and SistersCamelot.org.
Lisa Chou 0:02
Hey, it’s me, Lisa from the present. As promised at the beginning, here are some updates from the The Food Group and ways to get involved this fall. Why don't we start with just quick introductions and then you can jump into what new things have changed over the past year with The Food Group.
Sophia Lenarz-Coy 0:41
I'm Sophia Lenarz-Coy. I'm the executive director at The Food Group. And The Food Group has had a really busy 18 months, things remain incredibly busy new food needs are really continuing to be high in the community. So we are still seeing almost record numbers of food coming in and out of our warehouse. So it's down a bit from the peak of last summer, but certainly elevated beyond levels that we ever seen in the history of our organizations. that need remains, you know, really heightened right now for a lot of folks, just with all of the, you know, COVID disruptions in employment. And now with things like inflation and food costs going up. We're just finding for a lot of folks that there's just not enough resources to kind of cover all the needs that that are arising for families.
Sophia Lenarz-Coy 1:51
So the good news is that the mobile market buses are back on the road. The mission of transitional market is really to provide accessible, affordable, highly nutritious food to folks who might not otherwise be able to get them. So that's back happening and a big river farms, you know, we continue to have farm teams working the land. That's a certified organic program that's really a land based education. So it's about immigrant refugee farmers, other farmers of colors, having access to land and markets. It's been a tough growing season. You know, the the early drought was really difficult. We experienced water shortages. And that definitely hit certain crops in a way that that is always unpredictable, right? Like, welcome to farming. But you know, farmers have done a great job adapting and working the best they can with what they've got.
Lisa Chou 3:06
Yeah, that's great to hear.
Are there any volunteering opportunities or upcoming events you really want to highlight?
Sophia Lenarz-Coy 3:25
Volunteers are always needed at our new hope warehouse. . shifts are available on our website, and we are seeing really low volunteer numbers right now. . At the start of the pandemic, we saw a lot of volunteers come in, and a lot of folks who were, you know, hospitality workers, or who had changes of employment, who really passionate about food ended up coming in and volunteering a lot. But kind of as the hospitality industry comes back a bit, we're actually Sarah volunteers down a lot. We used to rely heavily on corporate groups that come in with work teams, and we're so many corporate groups continuing to stay remote. Any volunteer support we hear right now is incredibly helpful.
Lisa Chou 4:22
Yeah, that's really interesting to hear. So if we have any listeners who have workplaces, who are looking to give back to the community, coordinating that would be a great way to revisit coworkers you might not have seen in person, but also help the community.
Sophia Lenarz-Coy 4:36
Exactly, exactly.
Lisa Chou 4:39
I know some volunteering opportunities our food waste group was really interested in were some of the tours. So The Food Group warehouse tour, and packing night as well as some of the tours of the big river farms.
Sophia Lenarz-Coy 4:54
Yeah, so we're trying to offer opportunities for people to come learn a little bit more about our work too. So yeah. We've got upcoming tours available for folks to sign up on. We also have an upcoming event already September 30. But that's going to be a group volunteer event at Big River farm helping kind of put the farm to bed for this season and do some projects there that that are going to support our farmers. So there's lots of ways to get engaged. And we still have a few I think Farmers Market rescue shifts. We're always also encouraging people to volunteer at local food shelves, you know, local community organizations doing food work, you know, our work happens in collaboration with so many different organizations. And so, you know, any plugs that we can put in for finding your local food shelf to to help out with, we're happy to make those connections to? Everything's on our website, TheFoodGroupMN.org.
Lisa Chou 6:17
Yeah, definitely. There's so many of them across the Twin Cities. Well, I think that's all.
Sophia Lenarz-Coy 6:46
Fabulous. We're so appreciate you. Thank you.
Lisa Chou 6:54
Thanks so much for sharing all those updates.
This has been “Nourish by MN350” and we hope you’ll all tune in again next time.