Future Leaders Fuel Food Access: Locally Driven, National Impact with Regina Harmon of Food Recovery Network

Our latest episode is with Regina Harmon, Executive Director of Food Recovery Network, one of the largest student-driven movements against food waste and hunger that recovers and donates perishable food that would otherwise go to waste. Regina shares the story of Food Recovery Network and how they’ve successfully engaged with college students. Together, Regina and Nika discuss how to avoid “analysis paralysis” when faced with the seemingly overwhelming problem of food waste. We conclude our episode with recommendations of how anyone can engage in Food Recovery Network to have a lasting impact to reduce food waste. 

If you have an idea for an episode topic you’d like to see featured or if you would like to participate in an episode of USAID’s Kitchen Sink, please reach out to Nika Larian (nlarian@usaid.gov).

There’s no time to waste!

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[Music] welcome to USAID's kitchen sink a food loss and waste podcast I'm your producer Nika Larian 30 to  40% of the food that is produced is either lost or wasted contributing to a global food crisis  with over 800 million going to bed hungry listen on on as USAID experts speak with researchers and  development professionals to explore solutions to this critical issue that Demands a kitchen  sink approach when it comes to climate food security and food system sustainability we have  no time to [Music] waste thanks for tuning in to USAID's kitchen sink a food loss and waste podcast  my name is Nika Larian senior food safety advisor and producer of the kitchen sink today I will  be speaking with Regina Harmon executive director of Food Recovery Network one of  the largest student-driven Mo movements against food waste and hunger that recovers and donates  perishable food that would otherwise go to waste thank you for joining us  Regina I'd like to start with the story of food recovery Network what makes your model unique  na thank you so much for having me I'm really excited to have this conversation and for the  opportunity to tell the story of food recovery Network so yes it definitely begins with the  story for sure um way back in 2011 and actually a little bit before that students at the University  of Maryland were uh on their campus and you know this unique wonderful time you know for those of  us who have the opportunity to go to university um they were just trying to figure things out they  were in Academia hearing about all of these different Global issues Global poverty the  global climate crisis and as they were getting those understandings of of the  world around them there weren't a whole heck of a lot of solutions that went along with these big  problems that seemed insurmountable but then at the same time you know they were trying to figure  out you know who do they want to be out in the world so they were taking the time to do a lot  of volunteering efforts to help alleviate some of the issues that they saw in their direct community  so they saw people who were hungry in their direct community so they were participating in peanut  butter and jelly sandwich making drives they were volunteering at soup kitchens to deliver food to  people um but then a couple of the students one had um a work study um where they were working at  the kitchen at one of the um dining Halls at the University of Maryland um and then at the end of  their shift all the food that wasn't sold they literally had to throw that food away another  student was an athlete and um participated in in a sport and then at the end of practice would Sprint  down the campus to get to one of the dining Halls um to buy food and sometimes he made it  and sometimes he didn't um but literally would be okay if I made it at 458 p.m. I could purchase the  

food but if I got there at 5: 3:17

05 p.m the food was all gone and it was thrown away so light  bulbs went off here's all this extra food that's perfectly good I know that is perfectly good I  can see it I'm being asked to throw this away um but meanwhile so many people in our communities  are suffering from food insecurity so one thing led to another the light bulb started to go off  and the student said hey we can package up this food and bring it to these locations where instead  of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich Drive they can have all this awesome food that our  school has um and I will say it took a very long time to convince the dining hall so this is you  know well over 12 years ago now at this point longer things were in a very different place  back then um and so it took a lot of convincing so this is the tenacity the resiliency of these  students who kept hearing no from quote unquote adults you know people of authority but they  wouldn't be removed from from their idea and So eventually the dining hall manager heard  them out and was thinking wow this is actually a very good idea um and that's how food recovery  network was born um through the power of young people who saw hey we see all these problems but  we can literally do something about this um and then eventually over time what happened was they  just started calling up friends at different colleges and universities across the United  States to say hey we're doing this cool thing it's called food recovery you should do it too here's  how and then they gave them the tools on how to talk to their dining managers where to bring the  food and that is how food recovery network was born the power of young people to start a new  movement to solve a couple of really big problems I love that story Regina and I think you really  really encapsulated just like you said the the passion and the momentum that can be generated  by by young people and I really resonate with with how you discuss like this time in college  as you're trying to find yourself and I would definitely recommend any of our listeners who are  are still in school or maybe who have kids that are in school to to really get out there as you  said and and explore as many different volunteer opportunities as you can because that's something  that even through grad school where I was really pushed to to be in the lab all the time but I was  really dedicated to getting out there and doing things in the community that were still related  to nutrition and and the program that I was in and those volunteer experiences ended up shaping so  much of what my career is today so I I definitely want to reiterate that point that you made and I  think we'll we'll Circle back to the importance of Youth and and the role that they play and the the  issue of food loss and waste later in this episode but as you mentioned it's it's a big issue to  tackle and some of these large institutions are are hesitant to change and with the the recent  food waste index report we we heard that the world is wasting one billion tons of food one billion  meals every single day it's hard to even grasp the magnitude of those numbers so how do we shift from  this hesitation to change this analysis paralysis into action I love that question and it's it's so  true you you underscore um what is happening every day that is perpetuating um this this  terrible situation and as you've indicated there's absolutely lots of things that we can do um and I  talk about this a lot and it is let's be inspired by the students who um created food recovery  Network they weren't trying to you know solve the issue all across the globe they understood  that food waste was a problem in their community that precious food was being thrown away and they  understood in their community that people were hungry so that was in the scope of their control  they could do something within their community and as you were mentioning you know these incredible  moments of volunteerism I can't wait to talk about about that and how it does shape us um that's how  they then inspired other people to do this work in their own communities so for food food recovery  Network we say we are a national nonprofit with a local solution so the first thing is to understand  that yes these numbers are are are really big um we know from our partner organization over  at refed we love them so much that 88.7 million tons of food went unsold or une Ian in the United  States so for in the United States that's about 38% of our total food supply um and so what we  could do about that is understand these are the numbers and I always say you know we have to take  that deep breath and and understand we cannot be frozen by this you know with Bight flight Fawn or  freeze we have to fight um and so luckily there are lots of things that people can do to sort of  hear these numbers and overcome them just like the students at at the University of Maryland  um and so there's legislation that helps us to change the policies from food waste to  actually food recovery and for everyone listening here you know what we can do is we can encourage  restaurants grocery stores our events that we have at our jobs to ensure that there's a food  recovery plan in place because cplus food happens for all kinds of reasons it really does and if we  have a plan in place we can capture that precious food and ensure it doesn't go into landfill which  is the number one place that all that precious food is destined for um and so we have all kinds  of res sources on our website to help people and I and I want to say you know we have to start small  think about all the things that everyone is good at that's listening you didn't just become good  at that in a day and said oh I want to be really good at soccer or oh I want to be the best leader  ever and boom it happened it's gradually over time so if we just remind oursel that Perfection isn't  even in the room with us here we have to remember it's not about perfection it is about small  efforts every single day um and later on we can also talk about at the individual home you know  what we can do to ensure that our leftovers um you know the extra produce that we have um isn't being  tossed away um that we can you know keep the value of that food um in our own homes as well you you  touched on a lot of themes that I love I know you were you're speaking to the US context but this  idea of a global problem with local Solutions is approach that us Aid takes as well in the country  that we're working in and you also mentioned this um human- centered approach of there there are so  many people that are going to bed hungry every single night and we're at the same time we're  wasting billions of tons of food and uh on a recent episode with rethinks Ken Baker we  talked about this human- centered approach and and really making that that connection that personal  connection with people because I think what we've been learning in the the food waste space is how  to make our message hit home and I think the message for different audiences is obviously  different I think when it comes to businesses and institutions a lot of times the economic argument  is is the way to go because money talks and if you can make the financial argument that reducing food  waste is going to increase their bottom dollar they like that argument and while at the same  time I think the economic case can ring true for consumers I I definitely think that's valid but  at the same time I think there is is that that human argument that human approach that that  really needs to to hit home and I think that's how we conceptualize and contextualize a lot of these  big numbers because a billion tons of food like I can't even how big is that you know it's it's  so big you can't even imagine it but when you try to break it down and say this many people  are going hungry in the US in your community and were wasting 1 billion meals every single day that  could be feeding these people I think I think it helped contextualize that message and like you  said it's going to take small efforts every single day um by everyone in our community to to tackle  this issue and of course we're we're talking a lot about youth today so I want to continue um  that conversation and ask you what is the role of college students in fighting food waste it is  critical the role of college students in fighting food waste is is critical and just a really quick  story you know to to to further underscore the beautiful comments that you made and what you're  seeing across these awesome conversations in the work of usaid um you know we have um students who  we have over about 200 chapters food recovery Network chapters all across highered we are in  46 States and in the district of Colombia um so food recovery literally is happening every  single day and we say this is the power of young people um who are transporting food literally  one car load of food at a time some of them have ebikes some of them are walking the food over to  where it needs to go these wonderful locations um these are homeless shelters these are soup  kitchens these are after school programs these are DV locations that are helping people get back on  their feet these are locations that help veterans underemployed people o um people who have are  unhoused you name it these are locations that are on the front lines helping our community members  and our our students our student leaders at the at Food recovery Network are going to these locations  literally every single day and a lot of times the food is staying right on college campuses because  they want to help their own student body tackle food insecurity there um so just really quickly  based on what you were saying you know this is the power of young people we have one chapter  that every Saturday their food recovery Network chapter goes to their local Bagels shop and they  recover the bagels from the day before there and then they bring the the the bagels to their  their local hunger fighting partner agency every single Saturday and that is their food recovery  effort they hang out they get to see the people at the bagel shop they get to go to this incredible  nonprofit that they love so much and say hey here's some bagels and then they go about their  Saturday it is a beautiful thing then they've directly helped feed people in their community and  then we have other chapters they recover prepared meals three meals a day seven days a week it  really does um run the gamut on how much recovery is happening at any one chapter but what all of  these chapters have in common is people saying I can take my time to do this food recovery you know  they everyone's been um trained on how to handle the food safely I can transport this food and I  can bring it to locations in my community that I know this food is needed most and that is the  power of young people they started this they are sustaining this they are continuing to encourage  more people to do this work um our number one way that we get more chapters is by word of  mouth because people find this work this effort this care to be so important to them and who they  are that they want to encourage other people to do that so it is really so incredible this movement  that has started by young people and the power of young people back to your question is why are  they why are they so critical well it's because food recovery can happen at any time now if you  think about a restaurant or if you think about dining Halls on college campuses if you think  about you know a National Conference that you've gone to at the end of any meal well you know hey  we had lunch and now I go back to my workshop at this big Conference next Workshop starts at two  so the food is there now at 2 o'clock but you're at your Workshop then everyone else around you is  at their day jobs who's around a lot of times it is college students oh it's a Tuesday at 2 o'clock  I don't have class I can take my time and I can go to that event and I'm I'm perfectly trained on how  to handle this food safely I know exactly where it needs to go I can do this um so it is this latent  capacity of young people who there thousands thousands and thousands of college students so  this is the beautiful thing about young people starting this movement that they're around and  they care and I will say too they're also very busy just like all of us um but they can work  their schedules around to ensure that food doesn't go to waste definitely sometimes I look back at  the things that I did in undergrad and grad school and I'm how did I find the time to do all of that  the energy seems Seems endless when you when you look back at it but I I love this um aspect of  community that you mentioned and and really on both sides one the importance of community in  terms of spreading the word and raising awareness of the food waste issue but also what's happening  in the space what can you do about it but but on the other hand you mentioned that this The  Bagel example I so many of the the the potential Solutions and interventions and organizations that  I've I've spoken with in the food waste space are really providing opportunities to interact engage  and connect with your community and oftentimes people that you otherwise may not encounter in  your day-to-day life so like you said whether it's talking to the people in in the bagel shop  or talking to the people in the organization where the rescued food is ultimately going  there's there's just so many more opportunities for connection and for these young people to to  really get ingrained in their community and learn more about people from different contexts and like  I said I think that helps make this human centered approach um really ring true and I want to I also  want to follow up you mentioned that the students are trained on handling food safely and I'm in the  Food Safety Division at us a so I know that food safety and food loss and waste are very closely  related so I I wanted to to give the opportunity for you to speak a little bit more about that and  maybe some of the training that these students go through or if there's any legislation or  regulations that you'd like to speak to that's really shaping the Food donation and food Rec  rescue space I love this question yes yes yes um and just to you know when here's a here's a large  number that I think everyone listening in can actually really love to hear and that is through  the power of young people food recovery network has been able to recover more than 18.3 million  pounds of food and that translates into about 15.2 million meals all across the United States  for people who are experiencing food insecurity and hunger um so these are really big numbers  that we want to celebrate um and so um with our students all of our students are are trained on  how to handle their food safely so there's um you know training guides that we provide to them but  then if we think about you know the fact that this so so there's that period um you know they they  know how to keep the temperature of the food how to package it safely um when they transport the  food to the nonprofit that nonprofit also has to be able to handle food safely meaning is it going  to the refrigerator is it going into the freezer um is it being served right away these are all the  steps you know that we take but back to the the idea of training our students on how to handle the  food safely there's all of the um um training that they would need to be able to do that and feel  confident that this food isn't going to um cause harm to anybody um and um so we also have hats  hand you know gloves you know all these things no opened uh closed uh no open toed shoes you know  things like that uh food is never to be put on the floor I could go on and on about how to handle  food safely but the beautiful thing you know to kind of weave this into what you were talking  about with these beautiful relationships is the students are working directly with the people who  just created those meals you if you think about back in the kitchen all this incredible work um  staff the kitchen staff who with love over the course of hours created all of this precious food  they too know how to handle this food safely and the last thing they want to do is throw this food  away at the end of their shift um so this is again the power of keeping dignity and value in the food  so every step of the way the food is being created with love it is being uh uh packaged with love  and care it is being donated to a nonprofit with love and care and safety in mind um and um so so  there's just there's just that but I will say you know to to your point about you know what are laws  and things like that that can help make U food recovery um safer and things like that there's  actually two laws that um I really want everyone to to know about and to celebrate because it shows  that our federal government no matter who's in office it doesn't matter our federal government  as an entity says we want to promote food recovery as an action um now the first one is in 1996 the  bill Emerson Good Samaritan law that says if you donate food to a nonprofit in good faith that you  can't be held liable um and there's no case law um on this 1996 law meaning no one has sued and  and tried to use the bill Emerson Good Samaritan act because it it shows us that culturally we  do understand that food people deserve food and people care about the food that they are  providing to others and we want to make sure that that food is safe and healthy for everyone to eat  and to consume um and then in 19 or excuse me in 20123 um a new law was enacted called The Food  donation Improvement Act and that expanded that 1996 law the bill Emerson Good Samaritan law it  expanded it and made it clearer for people and it and the expansion was when you donate this food  you can now donate to um individuals before it used to be nonprofits and food recovery  Network we still you know continue to donate to nonprofits in particular because they're the most  equipped to help their communities in need but it has allowed us to do some other really creative  ways to to feed people um and it also expanded to include who can donate this food because in  1996 it didn't include Farmers agriculture now these are the folks that they have a lot of food  um and when we didn't include Farmers back in 1996 what that meant was they too then weren't able to  get the tax benefits that go along with donating um food so you're talking ni I love this so much  it it shouldn't be about the money it should be about there's 44 million people meaning there are  hungry people in every every single zip code that this shouldn't be the case at all but if if you're  going to do the right thing with your surplus food you now have some tax benefits that can help make  this a bit more cost-effective for you because we're leaving money on the table um so that's what  the beauty of this Food donation Improvement act um enabled all of us now I can't tell people that  you're never going to get sued that's impossible you know we could end this conversation at you  know and you might say I'm going to sue Regina I didn't like how she answered that question  you know these are it's it is a reality um and we get that hesitation from people all the time but I  just want to say with love with care and with food recovery Network expertise you too can create a  food recovery plan all of the barriers we can we can move all of those out of your way if you had  any hesitation it just means you want to do food recovery you want to do the right thing with your  surplus food yes there might be fear and fear is legitimate I understand that but come on with us  and start doing the right thing with your surplus food there's so many more efforts to say yes to do  this than there are to say no don't do this I love that I love this idea of of reducing barriers and  I appreciate you breaking down the Food donation Improvement act and and how that changed from from  the previous law in in the 90s we've we've mentioned the Food donation Improvement act  on this podcast before but really haven't dived into what that means what what are the changes and  how is this really impacting efforts on the ground and you've caught me on a good day Regina I'm not  feeling particularly the tigis so I I don't think you'll be seeing a lawsuit from me after this um  but I guess on that note uh yeah it's it's kind of hard to believe sometimes that I am apparently  an adult so I am no longer a youth uh so how can I get involved in food recovery Network I  know what you mean I know what you mean what I I'm so thankful that I get to be surrounded by  such inspiring young people every single day it's really such an honor um but sometimes I do feel  like you know the older person in the room so but it does not matter what your age is you know to  your question there's so much that people can do um to begin this continuous effort of changing the  dialogue and the action from food waste to food recovery we need everyone on Deck to help with  this um so the first is you know as I mentioned before find out you know wherever you work  wherever you go to school there's going to be food there if if it's a a national uh conference  that you've gone to your local golf tournament um at your church you know that that big uh family  meal that everyone has at the end of the U month or whatever whatever it is is there a place for  the surplus food um and if there isn't you know come on to the food recovery network uh website  to find out what you can do um that's the that's really the first place to understand is food waste  happening um and do people feel like they have the the resources to stop that action from happening  now I will also say all across the United States there are really incredible food recovery  organizations AR FRN we are powered by young people um but there are so many organizations  that locally have the capacity to receive Food get to know who those organizations are we have a  lot listed on our website um get to know the Food donation Improvement act it's a it's super short  it really is so short um and understand what that means because let's celebrate you know when we  think about Federal actions it's like okay what does that mean in my everyday life well what this  means for all of us in our everyday life is we can recover food it does not need to go into landfill  um right now there's a new piece of legislation that we are working on so um you Congress is just  getting back into to um action you know after the August recess um we have an election coming  up but there are things that we can still do now there is the food date labeling act and this says  there is confusion and maybe all of you feel this in your own homes about the dates that we have on  our packaged Foods Best Buy freshest buy just a random date um is this food still safe for my  family to consume I don't know I'm going to throw it away that confusion around date labels causes  about 80% of households in the United States to unnecessarily throw away food it means millions  of tons of food that have these dates that don't really mean anything are not able to be accepted  by food banks and all of this food as I've as I've indicated through before goes to landfill that is  the number one place that food goes whether it is perfectly fine to eat or it should have been  composted only about 8% of food that's available still for humans to eat is recovered about 5% of  food is composted some of it goes to animals some of it goes to making energy most of it is going  into the trash let's stop that because when it goes into landfill it's causing greenhouse gases  to be emitted unnecessarily so we can see that this dizzying effect we can stop this um so so if  we help encourage our elected officials to sign on to the food date labeling act and many have  already this is bipartisan meaning Republicans are saying yes to this and Democrats are saying yes  to this people in the middle as well you know if you have an independent um as an elected official  that's awesome too but we need more people um our elected officials to do the right thing  and sign on to the food date labeling act so we have more information about that on our website  as well excellent we will be sure of course to link the website in our episode description so  all of our audience members can check out those resources because like you said everyone has a  role to play whether it's with f FRN or just more globally in the food waste issue whether you're a  young person on a college campus you're an adult attending a conference or you're just young at  heart and looking to get involved there's a role for everyone and and you said you mentioned being  surrounded by Youth and I think the one thing that we can learn is just to to just be inspired  by the energy and the initiative that they take I think sometimes the older we get it's easy to  kind of stuck in the status quo and even if we see an issue that we know there's probably a solution  to it's it can get easy to just say oh well maybe someone else will take care of that or I don't  have time I'm too busy I have work to do and I think we should be inspired by the young people  involved in F FRN and more just globally with with the food waste issue is if you see a problem  and you know that there's probably a solution out there check out these resources go to fn's website  see what other people are doing to tackle food waste and I'm sure there are resources and people  that would be willing to help you walk through a solution to this this problem that you're seeing  so I think we should all be inspired by the youth around us and their energy that I admire  so much um that's what keeps us young at heart so I really appreciate this conversation today  Regina it's been great to learn more about food recovery Network and really just get inspired by  the people that are involved in F in and just all of the great work that's happening so thank you  and thank you thank you for your enthusiasm and your encouragement it really means a lot  this has been wonderful thank [Music] you thank you for tuning in to us A's Kitchen  sync this podcast was produced by ni laan and is organized by the USAID food loss and waste community of  practice co-chairs Ahmed Khablan and Ann Vaughn additional Thanks goes to feed the future the US  government's Global Food security initiative and the USAID Center for nutrition [Music]