How important is food recovery?

Food Donations come in two general categories. Donated Food may be purchased by individuals and groups from retail and wholesale outlets, or it could be food that has been offered for retail on supermarket shelves, but is now available for donation. This second category is what we call recovered food.

Supermarkets donate food to make room on their shelves for new product.

Recovered food represents over 60% of the food we distributed to families last year. If stores purchase less, they have less available to donate. Given the current state of the economy, there is a great deal of uncertainty in the amount of this food that will be available.