In a warehouse in Chillicothe, bunches of bananas sit untouched. Any one plucked from its pallet would make for a great afternoon snack, but there are more here than Sam’s Club shoppers can buy.
Their fate would be a landfill, except for one saving grace: a food rescue truck is on its way.
The 24-foot truck left Brookside Church when roosters were still crowing. The vehicle, purchased with a grant from the Mid-Ohio Food Bank, will help the local food pantry collect pallets of potatoes, cereal and bananas that otherwise would get thrown away.
“The whole idea for the food rescue is that no food goes to waste,” said Matt Steinbrook, associate pastor and leader of today’s banana rescue mission. “We are putting food on tables.”
Around a third of the U.S. food supply is thrown away, adding up to billions of pounds of uneaten meals. But some major retailers have found a small way to counter pervasive food waste by partnering with food banks, like Steinbrook’s.
Growing demand
As he drove down Chillicothe streets, pastor Steinbrook said the bananas and other food donations would be used to address a growing need in the south-central Ohio city.
Recent plant layoffs and the closure of the local paper mill have driven more people to Brookside’s weekly food pantry.
“When the community feels things like that, we obviously see it. The impact comes our way,” he said.
But Chillicothe isn’t the only community whose capacity is being stretched. Kerry McCarthy, director of programs with the Mid-Ohio Food Collective said food pantries across their 20-county system are reporting rising need.
“We've had some reduced cuts in the product coming through USDA last year,” she said. “And at the same time, people were finding it very hard with the increasing price costs of just getting food … How are we gonna stretch it for our communities?”
The logistics
Partnerships with large retailers may seem like an obvious or simple solution, but it takes a lot of coordination to transport a pallet of bananas from Sam’s Club to a food pantry.
Brookside Church needed a grant from the Mid-Ohio Food Collective and Feeding America to afford the truck. Plus, it still requires people, fuel and maintenance to run out to retailers eight times a week.
“Everybody is volunteer. But also this takes almost $200 to fill up, and that's not even on empty,” Steinbrook said. “So there are costs involved with keeping this running.”
Some days, Steinbrook puts extra miles on the truck to share his haul with smaller pantries that don’t have the same resources. He said his church has become a hub for the region.
“We reach out to some of the smaller local partners and say, ‘Hey, we've got a pallet of blueberries, or a pallet of salads, a pallet of whatever, can you use them?’”
Feeding families
On this chilly March morning, the bananas are spared a stop. They bounce in the back of the truck for a short 15-minute trip to the church, where volunteers are waiting to unpack them
One bunch ends up snuggled between a loaf of bread and a bag of grapes in a retired shopping cart with a faded Lowes logo. Volunteer Vicki Stewart pushes them toward the patrons.
She first came to the food bank during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the years since, she says it’s been a struggle to support her family of five.
“We take all our resources and we pull them together the best that we can, but still there's that line, that society line. … It's hard to get above it,” she said.
Stewart passes the fruit-filled cart to Debbie Clark, one of around nearly 300 households that visit the Brookside food pantry each week.
The retired teacher started coming to the food pantry four years ago, after being diagnosed with cancer.
“It helps me with my grocery bills because I have a lot of medical bills that I need to pay,” Clark said.
Like Stewart, she’s both visitor and volunteer. While she may take home a couple bananas for herself, most of the groceries in her three carts have a bit farther to travel. She’s driving them straight to the homeless shelter.
“There were days when we didn't have any food to eat when I was a kid, and I remember that. That's why I give,” she said.
There’s no shortage of need or food here – just miles between the two.
