Hungry Harvest is working to make sure *everyone* has access to healthy, affordable food. Basically, this is the grocery store version of “you can’t sit with us!” from Mean Girls.Īccording to the USDA, the biggest source of waste in landfills today is unused produce estimates say that up to 40% of food goes to waste in the US – and yet we have a huge demographic of people in the US who go hungry every day.
This “imperfect produce” can be too big, too small, slightly misshapen – not bruised or dying, but they’re still left off the shelves because they don’t fit the strict standards to be allowed on store shelves. You know how when you go to the grocery store, all the produce seems to be perfectly shaped, shiny, and screaming “eat me!” Well, that’s because the criteria for what produce can be sold is sometimes unusually strict – which means a lot of totally delicious and nutrient dense, fruits and veggies get left behind. Hungry Harvest has “ugly produce with a purpose” and the company is on a mission to end food waste and hunger. But honestly, that isn’t even the best part. It’s also perfect for a Whole30 (Hungry Harvest is now a Whole30-Approved partner!), since you can customize your box to send you only Whole30-friendly goodies every week. Now that I’ve moved and am busier than ever, I was looking around for a CSA – not only to support local farms and snag myself some amazing fruits + veggies, but again, because I’m an entrepreneur and trying to save as much $$ as I can to put back into my business! So you can imagine how pumped I was to find that Hungry Harvest, which was started by a University of Maryland grad (only 20 mins from where I grew up!) was the best of both worlds – a CSA delivered to your doorstep, where you actually got to choose which fruits and veggies come to your doorstep each week, all while saving the big bucks! For the WIN. Moral of the story is you’d never get left with 8 lbs of kale, though this one was pick-up, not delivery. It was amazing – instead of just showing up at the stand and being forced to get the same veggies + fruits as everyone else each week, you could go table by table and pick the ones you wanted based on the share size you bought at the beginning of the season. The past couple of years I did a local CSA that was down the street but have since moved (sad face emoji). And as much as we have the best of intentions of cooking up all the produce we get in our csa boxes, sometimes it goes to waste when you have too much of the same thing. Most commonly, a produce box shows up on your doorstep each week (convenience for the win!)…but you would never know what was coming, and then you’d end up with 8 lbs of dandelion greens that you had no idea what to do with (*scooby doo voice* “ruh roh!”). I’ve been telling you guys for years that joining a CSA (or community supported agriculture) is a great way both to save money on high quality produce and support local. In 2016, Hungry Harvest received an investment of $100,000 from Robert Herjavec of Shark Tank.Saving money by supporting a local company that provides YOU amazing produce, to your doorstep, at a fraction of the price of a grocery store – while supporting an amazing cause to help end food waste and hunger in the US? That’s the name of the game today with my friends from Hungry Harvest. Montgomery County recognized Hungry Harvest for providing "employment opportunities to ex-offenders and those experiencing homelessness, and work with the Grassroots Crisis Intervention Center to ensure workers have the necessary support services, such as transportation." News They work with organizations such as Manna Food Center, which serves over 40,000 people per year. ProgramsĪs nearly 1 million people in its nearby service area are food insecure, Hungry Harvest donates or subsidizes produce for every box delivered. GoalsĪccording to their website, Hungry Harvest's mission is to eliminate food waste and hunger in the U.S.
Īs of autumn of 2016, the company recovered over 1 million lbs of produce and partnered with Philabundance, the area's largest non-profit food bank, to donate their surplus produce. He began selling bags of produce to students through the Food Recovery Network, a national nonprofit launched at the University of Maryland to divert food waste from college campuses to feed the hungry. It was co-founded in 2014 by then Maryland School of Business student Evan Lutz.
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