Salvaging food to feed the hungry

Food-bank truck driver Page Tulloch struck gold Wednesday inside a Seattle grocery's stockroom: About 300 pounds of frozen turkeys, sausages and other meats — prized commodities that food banks typically struggle to provide the hungry.

Up until recently, groceries with unsold but still usable produce, bakery goods, dairy products and meats have had to pay someone to haul it to a landfill because Food Lifeline, Western Washington's largest food-bank supplier, didn't have the freezer space to guarantee its safety.

Going to waste

64,000 tons

Food waste generated by

Seattle businesses in 2004

(about 30 percent, or 19,200 tons, of that was edible)

$343 million

The value of edible food

wasted in Seattle in a year

No longer. Linda Nageotte, Food Lifeline's president, says the nonprofit is moving its distribution center from Shoreline to a larger warehouse south of downtown Seattle, quadrupling storage space. The agency has also formed new partnerships with grocery chains.

Over the next five years, it expects to double the amount of food it distributes to 40 million pounds a year, which Nageotte says will enable families to get enough food at each visit for six days instead of three.

The move is the most visible of several efforts under way in Seattle to keep good food from going into the trash.

Seattle Public Utilities, which manages the area's landfills, is hosting a national expert today to help brainstorm ways residents and businesses can divert still-edible food to agencies like Food Lifeline.

The utility and Food Lifeline are holding a media event today to draw attention to an ironic fact: Even though the state has a high rate of hunger in U.S. Department of Agriculture studies, businesses are throwing out more food than ever, according to a study by Seattle Public Utilities published in 2005. A decade ago, Seattle businesses generated nearly 43,000 tons of food waste annually. Now that figure exceeds 64,000 tons.

Tips for avoiding food waste


In the home

Most Americans buy nearly a third more fruits and vegetables than they'll eat before it rots. Observe how much you consume and buy only that amount.

Don't buy more just because it's cheaper.

Learn which foods have a short shelf life and recognize when they exceed it.

Learn how to store fresh foods and leftovers properly.

Contact a food-bank, shelter or similar agency about donating your excess food.

At grocery stores, restaurants and other businesses

Educate employees about the causes and prevention of food loss.

Fine-tune ordering and delivery systems.

For convenience and grocery stores, sell "made-to-order" foods rather than prepared foods to minimize unsold items at day's end.

Serve realistic portions.

Contact a food-bank, shelter or similar agency about donating your excess food.

Source: Timothy Jones, University of Arizona

The study found that hotels threw out the most, with food accounting for almost half of hotel garbage, on average.

To get edible food to Food Lifeline's distribution center, and from there to shelters and neighborhood food banks, Tulloch starts his route just past 5 a.m.

On Wednesday, he made the rounds at seven groceries, including the QFC store on Holman Road Northwest.

Stepping through the double doors in back that led to a chilly stockroom, Tulloch found what he'd come for: boxes of bananas, oranges, grapes, bagged salads, mushrooms, eggplants and tomatoes. Some items had bruises but looked fine to the untrained eye. He found a few rotten cucumbers and tossed them into the garbage.

"I was a computer programmer for 15 years, but I just didn't enjoy sitting in front of a tube all day," said Tulloch. In a way, what he's doing now is returning a favor.

Tulloch, 55, turned to a food bank in San Diego after losing a job in the late 1970s. "I felt I should rely on my own resources" rather than hit up friends and family for favors, he said. "It's degrading to have to do that."

More than half a million people, most of them working poor, turned to an agency last year served by Food Lifeline. About half had to choose between food or heat, and almost as many between food and medical care or rent, according to a recent Food Lifeline study.

About 30 percent of food that's dumped by businesses is probably edible, said Timothy Jones, a University of Arizona anthropologist and food-waste expert who is meeting today with Seattle Public Utilities.

Because food is relatively cheap and plentiful, "food loss is something that people don't think about," Jones said. Yet the value of wasted food in Seattle is more than $343 million a year, Jones said.

Carl Woestwin, a waste-prevention planner for the utility, said Seattle is looking at Portland's ForkItOver program, which connects hotels, restaurants and institutions with local food banks.

The city has committed about $20,000 to develop its own version of that program, he said, and an additional $80,000 to helping Food Lifeline buy more freezers.

"Lines at the food banks are getting longer and longer and longer," Nageotte said. "We are doing this expansion project so we can connect the food donors with the people who need their food so very much."

Sanjay Bhatt: 206-464-3103 or sbhatt@seattletimes.com