Food Recovery Organizations (Food Access)

Food recovery is the act of salvaging edible food that would otherwise go to waste from places like restaurants, grocery stores, markets, and other outlets. Check out the organizations below to learn more about the issues associated with the food recovery movement, including reduction of food waste.

Arlington Food Assistance Center

logo for Arlington Food Assistance Center

Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC) is a community-based non-profit that provides supplemental groceries to residents of Arlington in need. AFAC remains dedicated to its simple but critical mission of obtaining and distributing groceries, directly and free of charge, to people living in Arlington who cannot afford to purchase enough food to meet their basic needs.

Arlington Food Assistance Center

Capital Area Food Bank

logo for Capital Area Food Bank

The Capital Area Food Bank is the largest organization in the Washington metro area working to solve hunger and its companion problems: chronic undernutrition, heart disease, and obesity. By partnering with 444 community organizations in DC, MD, and VA, as well as delivering food directly into hard to reach areas, the CAFB is helping 540,000 people each year get access to good, healthy food.

Capital Area Food Bank

CaretoFeed

logo for CaretoFeed

The Care to Feed Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to providing food security in our community, while reducing waste in the restaurant industry. Care to Feed seeks to inspire local restaurants, grocers, and caterers to adopt its proactive and innovative approach to food recovery that redirects surplus meals headed to landfills to our neighbors in need.

CaretoFeed

CFN Food Waste and Recovery Group

Chesapeake Foodshed Network’s Food Waste and Recovery Work Group, (Formerly Food Recovery Work Group) is a working group of the Chesapeake Foodshed Network which focuses on improving our food systems food recovery strategies and activities toward that end.

CFN Food Waste and Recovery Group

Chesapeake Foodshed Network

logo for Chesapeake Foodshed Network

The Chesapeake Foodshed Network catalyzes connections and collaborations that build a sustainable, resilient, inclusive, and equitable regional food system in the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

Chesapeake Foodshed Network

Community Food Rescue

logo for Community Food Rescue

Community Food Rescue is the coordinated food recovery system of Montgomery County, Maryland. This system enhances the good work of businesses, individuals, and organizations that already recover and redistribute perfectly good food to people experiencing hunger. Community Good Rescue only provides food recovery in Montgomery County and is seeking volunteer food runners 18+ with vehicles to transport donated food according to your schedule. Please visit https://communityfoodrescue.org/our-mission/volunteer-food-runners/ to learn more and to sign up.

Community Food Rescue

Community Food Rescue - Specific Information on Food Recovery Organizations

DC Central Kitchen

logo for DC Central Kitchen

DC Central Kitchen is America’s leader in reducing hunger with recycled food, training unemployed adults for culinary careers, serving healthy school meals, and rebuilding urban food systems through social enterprise.

DC Central Kitchen

DC Central Kitchen - Specific Information on Food Recovery Organizations

DC Food Recovery Working Group

logo for DC Food Recovery Working Group

The DC Food Recovery Working Group was created in early 2016 to support overall food recovery efforts in DC and surrounding areas.

DC Food Recovery Working Group

DPR Urban Garden Division

logo for DPR Urban Garden Division

DC Parks and Rec (DPR) Urban Garden Division works with communities across the District to establish urban Ag projects (currently 31 community gardens and 5 non profit production farms) and urban ag support systems such as a urban garden education program offering over a 100 free classes, a citywide critter proof community compost cooperative iniitiative, a garden toolshare, a greenhouse coop, tree planting intiatives and an urban bee program.

DPR Urban Garden Division

Farm To Freezer

logo for Farm To Freezer

Farm to Freezer is a new brand of delicious, healthy, and locally-produced foods from vegetables that are frozen at the peak of ripeness. Your purchase of Farm to Freezer products allows us to provide this nutrient-rich food at deep discount to local hunger relief agencies for those in need.

Farm To Freezer

Feeding America

logo for Feeding America

The Feeding America network of food banks works with agencies to provide food through pantry and meal programs, which help families, students and seniors facing hunger and poverty make ends meet.

Feeding America

Food and Friends

logo for Food and Friends

The mission of Food & Friends is to foster a community caring for men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS, cancer and other life-challenging illnesses by preparing and delivering specialized meals and groceries in conjunction with nutrition counseling.

Food and Friends

Food For All DC

logo for Food For All DC

Food for All DC is a non-profit charity that strives to provide food to low income home-bound residents in real need. Our clients are generally elderly citizens, handicapped, or single mothers with young children. The operation is entirely volunteer operated, with the assistance of federal and other agency grants.

Food For All DC

Food Recovery Network

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Food Recovery Network unites students on college campuses to fight food waste and hunger by recovering perishable food that would otherwise go to waste from their campuses and communities and donating it to people in need.

Food Recovery Network

Freedge

logo for Freedge

Freedge is a sharing mechanism aiming to reduce food waste and build a stronger community. We promote the installation of community fridges (public refrigerators) that are used to share food and ideas at the neighborhood level.

Freedge

FRESHFARM Markets

logo for FRESHFARM Markets

FreshFarm Markets strive to build and strengthen the local-food movement in the Chesapeake Bay region, using farmers markets to create vibrant urban and community places, providing economic opportunities for farmers and artisanal food producers and showcasing our region’s agricultural bounty. FRESHFARM Markets operates 11 producer-only farmers markets with more than 110 farmers and producers from 5 states who farm more than 9,000 acres.

FRESHFARM Markets

Fruit Cycle

logo for Fruit Cycle

Fruitcycle recovers fruit that would otherwise go to waste and produces healthy, locally-sourced snacks. We will also provide job training opportunities for formerly incarcerated, homeless or otherwise at-risk women.

Fruit Cycle

Hungry Harvest

logo for Hungry Harvest

Hungry Harvest, LLC aims to create an efficient agricultural food system with zero waste by supplying gleaned and recovered produce that is inexpensive, healthy, and convenient to fight hunger in food deserts.

Hungry Harvest

Manna Food Center

logo for Manna Food Center

Manna Food Center works to end chronic hunger in Montgomery County, MD.

Manna Food Center

Maryland Food Bank

logo for Maryland Food Bank

The Maryland Food Bank is a nonprofit hunger-relief organization, leading the movement to end hunger throughout Maryland. – See more at: https://mdfoodbank.org/#sthash.RiXk3XDp.dpuf

Maryland Food Bank

Means Database

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MEANS Database (Matching Excess And Needs for Stability) is designed to help food shelves communicate with each other and significantly decrease food waste

Means Database

Miriam’s Kitchen

logo for Miriam’s Kitchen

Miriam’s Kitchen is a nonprofit working to end chronic homelessness in Washington, DC through a variety of programs.

Miriam’s Kitchen

Misfits Juicery

logo for Misfits Juicery

A food recovery company that uses recovered “misfit” fruit to make cold pressed juices for sale.

Misfits Juicery

Montgomery County (MD) Food Council

logo for Montgomery County (MD) Food Council

Our mission is to bring together a diverse representation of stakeholders in a public and private partnership to improve the environmental, economic, social and nutritional health of Montgomery County, Maryland through the creation of a robust, local, sustainable food system. Our vision is to cultivate a vibrant food system in Montgomery County that consciously produces, distributes, and recycles food, making it accessible to all residents while promoting the health of the local food economy, its consumers, and the environment.

Montgomery County (MD) Food Council

Shepherd’s Table

logo for Shepherd’s Table

We provide basic human services to men and women experiencing homelessness in our community. This includes supper 7 nights/wk + brunch on weekends!

Shepherd’s Table

The Campus Kitchens Project

logo for The Campus Kitchens Project

We partner with high schools, colleges and universities to share on-campus kitchen space, recover food from cafeterias and engage students as volunteers who prepare and deliver meals to the community.

The Campus Kitchens Project

Valley Proteins

logo for Valley Proteins

At Valley Proteins, our business is based on the collection and recycling of inedible animal by-products from the food industry that would otherwise lead to environmental contamination. We provide prompt disposal services to restaurants, supermarkets, abattoirs and poultry processing facilities throughout the Mid-Atlantic, eastern and southwestern United States. Our clean and efficient conversion plants recycle these by-products (fat and bone trimmings; waste cooking oils; meat/poultry by-products) into high-energy feed fat and protein-rich meal products. These value-added ingredients provide the nutrients feed producers need to create superior animal feeds.

Valley Proteins

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