Welcome to our summer E-Newsletter. In this issue: What's lingering in your refrigerator or cupboard? Wonder if this food is safe to eat? Take our quiz to find out. When planning your next catered event--what will you do with the leftovers? Announcing this year's CFR mini-grant winners and how their grants will help others. How CFR is a model to other communities. Read on for all the details.
Is Your Food Safe to Eat? Take This Quiz
Is this bruised peach still good to eat?
Test your knowledge of food safety; Click HERE to take this 10 question quiz to see how much you know.
How often do you wonder whether the food in your refrigerator or cupboard is safe to eat? How about that carton of eggs dated last month? Or the once gorgeous spinach from the farmer's market that now looks limp and unappealing. How about that can of beans in your cupboard, dated-yikes June 2015!
Food safety is paramount for every food service provider and even more so for those working in food recovery, because the rescued food may have a short shelf life. We've developed a simple brochure,
Keeping Food Safe from Pantry to Plate, available in
six languages, to guide all consumers on what package dates mean, the shelf-life of common foods, clues to determine food safety, and safe food storage practices.
High Point Catering donated food after a Manna Food Center fundraising event.
Montgomery Coalition for the Homeless receives the food donation for its men's shelter.
When there's food after the party, who you gonna call?
Planning a special event for your business, organization, or family? You can make a real difference in Montgomery County when hiring a caterer. Community Food Rescue (CFR) provides an easy way to share unused catered food with people in need of food assistance.
Volunteer food runner Tammi delivers rescued fresh produce from From the Earth Food LLC to WUMCO-HELP Inc.
CFR's Mini-Grants Program awards $60,000 to 11 non-profit food assistance organizations
Among this year's grant recipients,
Western Upper Montgomery County HELP, Inc. (WUMCO), a non-profit organization, provides groceries to more than 400 people per year in the Poolesville area. CFR's web-tool matched WUMCO with From the Earth Foods LLC, a farm just up the road from WUMCO.
"It's been great to receive such beautiful and fresh produce for our clients," said Catherine Beliveau, Executive Director. "The mini-grant allows us to purchase a new refrigerator and vegetable storage bins so that we can offer this delicious and healthy produce to our clients."
Cheryl Kollin, CFR Program Director (middle) with Maria Yap and Tod Hing of Peninsula Food Runners, who developed Chowmatch, CFR's matching tool.
"What will success in food recovery look like in five years?" The Silicon Valley Food Rescue Committee posed this question to 100 invited stakeholders, gathered for a day-long forum in San Jose, CA.
As Program Director of Community Food Rescue (CFR), a program of Manna Food Center, I was honored to share our development process in Montgomery County, Maryland at this forum. My presentation was geared to help participants create their own food recovery Action Plan, a process similar to the one that CFR has implemented over the last two years.
