$60,000 of produce is destroyed after 12 hours trying to rescue it
Even during the New England summer when local food is available, much of the produce in the supermarket food chains comes from California. Shipping food 3,000 miles across the country is fraught with problems that local food supply chains can more easily overcome.
A 53-foot tractor-trailer set out from California on Friday carrying all premium fresh produce, including cauliflower and kale, to the Boston area. Trucks are required to maintain a detailed record of temperatures throughout the trip. If the temperature deviates from the agreed-upon range, the retail warehouse can reject the shipment but the produce remains safe and nutritious for consumers despite being a couple of degrees warmer or colder at some point.
When the truck arrived on Monday, the vehicle record showed the temperature was not maintained and the company rejected the shipment for the technical violation of their contract. The produce, worth a minimum of $60,000, would not survive the trip back to the West Coast with enough shelf life remaining. The California employer tasked the driver with trying to find a local recipient to take the vegetables so that the driver could return to California without the load of unwanted produce.
Over a period of 12 hours, six local agencies--all with their own unique models of service--tried to salvage the produce. They exchanged over 30 emails and phone calls to try to solve some of the obstacles. The challenges included transferring the produce off the 53-foot truck and onto smaller trucks with the ability to transport locally. These trucks would need available loading docks and then access to open refrigerated space for storage. In addition, volunteers would be needed to break down the large shipping containers into family-size boxes for further distribution.
Time ran out. Unfortunately, this entire truck load of fresh produce had to be trashed at the direction of the California company. This story is just one example of highly-skilled food rescue nonprofits trying to solve a complicated problem. Sometimes the current process works--but sometimes there are just too many variables to allow good outcomes in the limited time available.
Solution
We seek to create a real time information flow platform in the form of a dashboard that gives all member agencies (current and future) visibility into the needs of the greater hunger relief community. This dashboard would also allow each member agency to share those resources that it can offer. By creating this central digital space, we will make it easier to collaborate quickly without making 20 phone calls and sending as many emails.