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Welcome New ALL IN Eats Chairwoman
A warm welcome to Vanessa Cedeño, Chief of Staff to Supervisor Dave Brown as the new Chair of ALL IN Eats. She succeeds Dave Brown, the late Supervisor Wilma Chan’s Chief of Staff who was appointed to the District 3 seat in November. Now the baton has been passed to Vanessa. She brings a wealth of experience in health, social services, and policy to the work. Welcome Vanessa!
SB 1383: How Much Food Can We Recover? New survey offers a snapshot and next steps.
Edible food recovery at Daily Bowl
Starting on January 1, 2022, large food producers including supermarkets, wholesale food vendors, contracted food services, and food distributors are required to donate the maximum amount of edible surplus food that would typically go to a landfill and redirect that food instead, to a food rescue organization (e.g., Alameda County Community Food Bank, Daily Bowl, etc.). Donating this edible surplus food addresses both food insecurity and reduces greenhouse gasses. By 2024 a much broader group of edible food generators will be required to donate including hotels, larger restaurants, hospitals, large venues, and events like the Coliseum, schools and state agencies.
StopWaste has just completed an Edible Food Recovery Capacity survey to learn more about food recovery organizations and services in the county and their capacity to recover, process, and redistribute edible food to food insecure residents.
At the February 24th ALL IN Eats Working Group meeting, Cassie Bartholomew, Program Manager at StopWaste, shared the results of the survey of nonprofit, government, and private food recovery organizations and services.
Current capacity
Most food recovery organizations are small with 5 or fewer volunteers (61%) and/or staff (87%). More than 75% of rescued food is distributed through food pantries and similar fixed locations. Despite their small size, organizations report distributing 90% of recovered food. About one third of groups said they currently have the capacity to rescue more food.
Despite the lack of a platform to coordinate food pickup and distribution, 71% reported sharing surpluses and coordinating pickups with another organization, 34% on a weekly basis.
Fresh produce (72%) and shelf-stable foods (77%) are the preferred, and most rescued, type of food. Bulk and hot prepared foods pose the biggest challenge due to limited staffing and volunteers, maintaining safe temperature levels for hot food, and breaking bulk purchases into smaller packages for distribution. Only 32% of food rescue organizations can accept bulk food and just 24% accept hot prepared food.
Challenges
Primary impediments to expanding food recovery efforts include lack of storage (82%), insufficient volunteers (74%), funding for rising fuel costs (63%) and vehicles (61%), insufficient staff (63%) and the lack of software to manage inventory and conduct donation matching (55%).
Next steps
- Despite these challenges, a broad majority (87%) are interested in expanding their capacity in 2022 and have plans to do so.
- Cassie Bartholomew told the group that more collaboration, resource sharing, and funding is needed to address capacity gaps. Additional research is also needed to determine how much surplus edible food is being recovered through current donation efforts and how much additional food is available beyond that to recover.
- The Alameda County Food Recovery Network is the space where StopWaste will be planning to strengthen the food recovery landscape as our County implements SB1383. Here’s a link for more information on how to get involved.
- Check out the full edible food recovery capacity survey results, which can be downloaded here.
Recipe4Health Launches in Hayward and Fremont
 ALL IN Alameda County’s Recipe4Health initiative launched at two new locations: the Alameda Health System (AHS) – Hayward Wellness Center and Bay Area Community Health (BACH) – Liberty Clinic in Fremont. Recipe4Health’s “food as medicine” model improves health, addresses food security, and promotes racial equity.
The Recipe4Health initiative uses three “ingredients” to improve the health of patients and the community: a Food Farmacy, a Behavioral Pharmacy, and Food as Medicine training for health partners. The program uses regeneratively grown produce from Dig Deep Farms to fill food prescriptions & Open Source Wellness for group medical visits, which provide patients with nutrition and health coaching, social connection, physical activity, and stress reduction strategies.
Through Recipe4Health, ALL IN is working with clinics to expand Food Farmacies into a clinically integrated program, which provides patients with food ‘prescriptions’ for 16-weeks of local, regeneratively-grown produce delivered straight to their doorsteps. Further, ALL IN staff provide clinical nutrition education and workflow integration training to clinic prescribers.
The two clinics join Tiburcio Vasquez Health Center (Unincorporated Alameda County), Native American Health Center (Fruitvale), and Lifelong Ashby Health Center (Berkeley) in the Recipe4Health partnership.
Other partners include the Alameda Alliance for Health, U.S. Department of Agriculture Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program, the Hellman and Stupski Foundations, the Community Health Center Network, and an evaluation team from Stanford School of Medicine and UCSF.
Farm and Food Hub Update
 Dig Deep Farms Co-Farm Director Troy Horton (left) gave a tour of two Dig Deep Farm plots in Ashland to Wilken Louie and Erick Lovdahl (center and right) from the Alameda County Community Food Bank. Not pictured: Dig Deep Farms Co-Director Sasha Shankar.
Farms
- Ardenwood Farm: Dig Deep Farms expects to start bringing 50 acres into production at the historic Ardenwood Farm as early as this summer. Over the next year, more of the property will be prepared and planted. Recently, Dig Deep Farms gave a tour to the Alameda County Community Food Bank and discussions are underway about partnering.
- Masonic Homes Farm: The 10 acres at Masonic Homes in Union City will be planted as early as June contingent on permitting and developing infrastructure. Masonic Homes will be the homebase for the Black Farmer Collective.
Food hubs
- Oakland: ALL IN Eats had a productive meeting with City of Oakland staff and City Council Member Loren Taylor to discuss next steps in the development of a Food Hub at the Arroyo Viejo Recreation Center in East Oakland. ALL IN Eats also supported the Black Cultural Zone with preparing a grant proposal to cover a portion of the initial capital and operating costs for the Food Hub.
- Livermore: A temporary Food Hub is being developed in Livermore using rented commercial kitchen space from On the Vine Catering. Under the ALL IN Eats business plan, a larger, permanent Food Hub will be developed at Crosswinds Church over the next few years.
- Hayward: The City of Hayward has been awarded a $125,000 planning grant from the Stupski Foundation to create and enact a Master Plan that will reinvest in local agriculture and food economies that are run by low-income, immigrant, and minority communities, including a possible Food Hub in South Hayward. ALL IN Eats met with City staff and will be providing technical assistance, as needed. Warm congrats to the City of Hayward!
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Community groups renew push for health equity and racial justice fund in California https://calmatters.org/california-divide/2022/02/community-groups-renew-push-for-health-equity-and-racial-justice-fund/ CalMatters
Nationwide study will examine the effects of regenerative agriculture
https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/01/19/nationwide-study-will-examine-the-effects-of-regenerative-agriculture Minnesota Public Radio
Rodale Institute Launches Course on Regenerative Agriculture, Food Tank
https://foodtank.com/news/2022/02/rodale-institute-launches-course-on-regenerative-agriculture/
Food Shift Chef & Culinary Educator
Pay Rate: $20 – $24/hr. Hours: 20 – 30 hours a week. Location: 677 W Ranger Ave, Alameda, CA, and remote as appropriate.
This position will teach and support apprentices going through our 6 month culinary training program. This is an opportunity to join an innovative, inclusive nonprofit dedicated to food waste reduction and food justice. Check out the full job description and application instructions here and consider joining our team
Dig Deep Farm Collective Coordinator$65,000 - $70,000 /year, 401K, Health Insurance, Paid Time Off, Phone & Computer Stipend
The Farm Collective Coordinator will work with farmers throughout Alameda County to help build a farmers collective; create and implement a business development plan; facilitate/coordinate training of new farmers on planting techniques, crop rotation, harvesting, and delivery schedules; and partner with the DDF Marketing Coordinator to develop direct-to-consumer marketing plans. The Farm Collective Coordinator will facilitate implementation of key strategies that create and emphasize opportunities for inclusion of Black, BIPOC and disadvantaged farmers.
Dig Deep Farms Urban Farmer$20/hr, 401K, Health Insurance, Dental Insurance, Paid Time Off
This job opportunity at Dig Deep Farms is for those who already have farming skills and plant knowledge or people self-motivated to learn these skills. Dig Deep Farms is dedicated to building social and environmental justice practices in our urban communities.
Have a job opportunity to share? Please send it to rachel.richman@acgov.org three weeks in advance.
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