Fresh vegetables from my garden

Shared costs model

Did you know that BILLIONS of pounds of produce grown in the United States never even make it to the packing house? To ensure they won’t short their customers, farmers usually over-plant their crops to hedge against uncontrollable events like drought or blight. When a farm has acres of product they know they will never sell, it is common practice to “disk under” those crops to feed the soil for the next season. They just can’t afford to harvest it all for donation, and sometimes it’s too much to glean. That’s where we come in.

Utilizing cash donations from our supporters, we are able to offset the Farmer’s costs to harvest all that produce, pack it into boxes, bags or bins, and get it ready for pickup by our fleet. The product is donated, but we pay Pick and Pack Out fees (PPO) to make sure they aren’t going broke donating their excess crops. This model lets us source cabbage, potatoes, melons, tomatoes – almost any crop you can think of – at pennies on the dollar vs wholesale pricing. This is one of the most important ways we helped provide [12.5 million pounds of produce] to our neighbors in need last year.