Special Note** culls that are not significantly damaged but not market quality can be safely recovered with small groups of volunteers properly trained in food safety. Not a family-friendly event but an efficient way to recover produce. This can be a messy and physical event,…
Northwest Harvest’s Culls for Community program utilizes commercial growers’ existing disposal systems to recover edible but unmarketable produce (culls) in large quantities. Commercial farms typically sort produce in the field or in the packing shed to avoid accruing costs by shipping unmarketable produce to their…
“Culling is the sorting or segregation of fresh harvested produce into marketable lots, with the non-marketable lots being discarded or diverted into food processing or non-food processing activities” -Wikipedia The Clallam County Gleaning Program has a much less formal process for recovering culls compared with Fruit…
One of TCFB’s big farm donors was mainly supplying culled produce, or produce that had already been harvested. This produce can be anything that was sorted out as un-sellable, such as blemished or misshapen vegetables, produce that was not sold at the market, CSA boxes…
Key Points Even when large amounts of summer squash, cucumbers, and other prolific vegetables are being donated by local gardeners, food pantries will still gladly accept the same produce from commercial growers because of its higher quality. Distribution is often the greatest barrier to providing…
The largest contribution of gleaned food at Fish Food Bank came from cull pick-ups. After farmers markets, growers usually have produce that will not last until the following market, which can be culled. These cull pick-ups were regularly scheduled for Monday or Tuesday – as…
Central Washington is home to many large-scale farms and every event can result in a harvest of between six and 40 apple bins, which can hold up to 1,100 pounds of produce each. Thus, transportation and storage are crucial when working with such donation volumes….
There are over 150 farms in Clark County that sell to produce distributors, restaurants, and at farmers markets. Many of these farms are dedicated to growing only a number of selected crops and often run a surplus towards the end of the season. One example…
Culls and harvested donations made a huge impact in the amount of produce WWCH received this year. The Harvest VISTA would first contact growers to see how much extra produce was available and arranged a pick-up or drop-off. WWCH has access to BMAC vehicles, so…
Another method for Urban Abundance to adapt to the pandemic was developing an entirely online harvest program.