The following organizations and solutions can help you donate, sell, buy, move, and store food, helping to reduce the surge in food going to waste at the farm level due to COVID-19 supply chain disruptions – contact them directly to see if their services will work for you.
We will continue to update this list as we become aware of more resources. Please send your suggestions to include at info@refed.org.
Donate, Sell, and Buy Food
- Local Food Anywhere by Forager (opens in a new tab)
- Forager (opens in a new tab) normally connects wholesale and retail buyers with independent farmers and artisan suppliers.
- In response to COVID-19, Forager has set up a nationwide resource, Local Food Anywhere, for consumers to find local farms so they can rest easy knowing they have sourced food that’s safe for their families.
- For consumers: Search for local farms in your community that have fresh food available now and can possibly provide delivery or pick up in a safe, and easy, COVID-19 sensitive manner.
- For farmers and suppliers: If you are a farmer, producer, or grocer interested in connecting with consumers in your community, click here (opens in a new tab) so we can add you to the map - our updates are in near real-time.
- Project Waste Not (opens in a new tab)
- For farmers and suppliers: Project Waste Not makes your content and product data available through the Open Food & Beverage Commerce Network to help grow revenues, reduce costs, and improve business operations.
- For buyers: Project Waste Not helps you know your food costs in real-time, enabling you to make better purchasing decisions and reduce your total procurement cost.
- Local Food Marketplace (opens in a new tab)
- Local Food Marketplace is an online storefront with solutions for farmers (opens in a new tab), food hubs and distributors (opens in a new tab), CSAs and subscriptions (opens in a new tab), and markets (opens in a new tab). It can provide production planning, reporting, order and distribution support (harvest lists, packing lists), invoicing, payments, and more.
- ReposiTrak (opens in a new tab)
- For buyers: ReposiTrak is now offering their MarketPlace online sourcing tool free to retailers for quick and easy access to the world’s largest network of compliance-vetted suppliers. Learn more here (opens in a new tab).
- For farmers and suppliers: The MarketPlace enables retailers and wholesalers to search and connect with ReposiTrak’s community of food and non-food suppliers, and bring new products to market in just a fraction of the time. Learn more here (opens in a new tab).
LABOR
- World Wildlife Fund (opens in a new tab)
- WWF's No Food Left Behind series (opens in a new tab) explores the drivers behind on-farm food loss and works to prototype and test possible solutions. In part three of this series (Second Helping: Can the Gig Economy Rescue Surplus Food from Farms? (opens in a new tab)) WWF provides an overview of options for recovering surplus produce, including Second Helping, a platform concept to connect farm surplus with food bank demand and source part-time "gig economy" labor to harvest this surplus. (opens in a new tab)
ReFED is a U.S.-based nonprofit that partners with food businesses, funders, solution providers, policymakers, and more to solve food waste. Its vision is a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive food system that makes the best use of the food we grow. The organization serves as the definitive source for food waste data, providing the most comprehensive analysis of the food waste problem and solutions to address it. Through its tools and resources, in-person and virtual convenings, and services tailored to help businesses, funders, and solution providers scale their impact, ReFED works to increase adoption of food waste solutions across the supply chain.
Find more news and updates from the ReFED blog.