July 6, 2007
Friendship Trays News
How donated produce found way into
nutritious meal
Readers
of a certain age may remember poking through food store
vegetable bins for the oddities: fused squash, cherries with
two pits, or the potato that looked like Uncle Fred's face.
But most groceries today won't buy too-large,
too-small or misshapen product. Out at Ray Cook Farm in Union County in
June, a squash and zucchini harvest produced six bins, 6,000 pounds, of
unsellable product -- enough to fill a 16-foot truck. So some
of the vegetables in those bins (picture, top right) came to be cooked (next
picture) then prepared and delivered to Friendship Trays recipients on
Friday, June 29. Some of it was prepared and served by the Community
Culinary School of Charlotte for its Bistro on June 28. A second batch of
squash was trucked to Columbia and traded for Vidalia onions and plums How did this all happen? For farmers, federal tax credits and state tax deductions
provide The key intermediary in this zucchini trail was Marilyn
Marks, Western N.C. program coordinator for the Society of St. Andrew. The
Society runs gleaning operations, which traditionally meant trudging into
fields behind commercial pickers to rescue whatever remainders were left or
overlooked. Today, says Marks, some farmers clear all produce from a field
in one pass. So Marks' role is to arrange for pick-up up produce that won't
sell and distribute it to food operations like Friendship Trays and to
individual contacts and churches that can get it to their needy neighbors.
A lot of good nutrition pursued with produce that might just have gone
into a landfill.
incentives
to donate unsalable produce. And if it's donated, the farmer's not left
burying the product or paying to dispose of it.
So
that's how the yellow squash and zucchini landed in the styrofoam boxes
(left) going out to Friendship Trays recipients with chicken salad and other
food. The Community Culinary School, which with the Society of St. Andrew
and Encore Catering operates alongside Friendship Trays on Distribution
Street, took some of the produce and featured it at their Bistro, both in an
raw vegetable dish and in the zucchini bread.
