I volunteer at a food bank, and the company that sends us our food decides what we get. Last Tuesday they sent so much produce we could not fit it all into fridges. We were trying to give away cases of the food on Wednesday, but people were turning it down because they had no place to store a case of tomatoes, or cauliflower. This was what we had left after last Wednesday's morning give away. Not pictured the 5000lbs of watermelons, the 2500lbs of onions (those will last a lot longer).
The company that supplies us wants to move from sending shipments every other week, to once a month. This would cause even more no produce loss.
It is so frustrating to have all this food for it to go bad. Even if we got the same volume of produce, but there was variation in what it is we could give it away easier.
Edit: I posted this in a comment.
Because of bureaucracy we have to request this. If it is found out we are giving away the food to unapproved recipients we can lose all of our funding. If we give to unapproved recipients and they in turn give us prepared food to give out, that is okay.
Word got out that we were loading up my pickup with food and taking it to the homeless camps. I did get a number of them to start coming to the bank to get food. But it was easier when I could take stuff to them.
We are not allowed to simply give it out to anyone. This is not like a church pantry where all of the food is donated by the community and's parishioners. There is government funding, as well as private businesses, which I am guessing get their money back from the government for funding this. If we could simply give it to anyone we would not be in this situation.
The jars likely cost more than the volume of produce it could store.
Also - have to arrange logistics for labor, supplies, and a kitchen to do the boiling in. Now that you are making a cooked food product, your kitchen also likely needs a license.
And insurance in case your rushed pickling operation creates any jars that go foul and anyone gets sick.
Also -- ew. Not even the destitute want pickled cauliflower.
I was nodding along until
It's great!
Yep food pantries will repackage food but rarely process or cook it because that's a whole different animal.
But, many food pantries I've worked with had ways to offload large amounts of things creatively, it's how I got the best pear gelato I've ever had in my life.
Use 20L food safe buckets.
Pickeled cauliflower sounds so incredibly bad
You need to teach people how to do it themselves instead. They can do it in small groups helping each other making the event more joyful.
Wait - do you think that people who need food banks have a ton of free time for cooking clubs? Do you think it's because they don't work enough instead of what everyone knows which is that most people on the edge can't make rent if they only have one job?
Why are you so judgemental without any reason?
Guess what, I work full time and I raised two kids alone and got time to cook. This being said, I fucking don't know about them, but some would enjoy the initiative among them instead of being stuck with someone like you who is not seeking for solutions but someone else to blame.
Ooohhh I see, I am judgemental because your circumstances and stated preferences represent everyone in a hard place.
If you both could have and would have done it, it is completely reasonable to make that an expectation on everyone who struggles.
Your struggle was definitely representative of the worst circumstances bc you had 1 job and were a single parent -- even though I mentioned how plenty of parents (including single ones) balance a FT job and gigs or a managerie of gigs. Or a FT job, single parenthood, and a disability. Or....
If you can't see past your own life and circumstance, but want to proscribe what other people 'should' do (or no longer deserve your empathy), you are the one who is judgemental.