Food Rescue Grows in Response to Federal Funding Cuts

Yves here. While it’s good to see community groups redoubling their efforts to feed the hungry, the fact that this push is occurring is the result of widespread cuts in Federal food program cuts. The one described below, Food Rescue, takes undamaged surplus products from wholesalers to food banks, schools and food pantries. There are also programs that take extras from retailers. One fancy grocer on the Upper East Side had its own bakery and sold only same-day wares. I’d usually come right before closing time and would see the staff assembling big bags of loaves and rolls. They told me they were going to a food charity. But even so, they often had even more leftovers that they told me they tossed :-(

The Trump Administration assault on the disadvantaged is multi-fronted. KFF Health News has two recent stories that focus on another dimension: that of Medicaid cuts, in New Medicaid Federal Work Requirements Mean Less Leeway for States and Red Tape Ahead for Millions on Medicaid. The second one is particularly disturbing. Citizens who by all standards are satisfying the Medicaid work rules are denied coverage through the Kafkaesque (non)approval process. And don’t kid yourself that you are exempt from this sort of thing. Anyone who receives benefits, and potentially anyone who deals with Federal bureaucracies (think the IRS) will increasingly be subjected to this sort of stonewalling.

On current trajectories of immiseration of the poor, I wonder how far the US is from having impoverished families turn kids over to orphanages because they can no longer feed them, as happens in some supposedly “middle income” countries. And yes, the parents are distraught when they feel they have no other option.

By Mia Hollie, a data reporting fellow at THE CITY. Originally published at THE CITY on August 5, 2025

Nestled inside a small warehouse room in Hunts Point Produce Market on a recent Tuesday, workers for the nonprofit organization Sharing Excess chucked flawed cucumbers into a large cardboard box.

As forklifts zig-zagged across the food rescue organization’s dock, the team members assessed the remaining stash of cucumbers, checking for signs of decay such as mold, mushy textures and rotten smells. They then sorted the viable cucumbers into mixed and single-item pallets of produce.

Sharing Excess retrieves unsellable food from market wholesalers, inspects it and then distributes what’s still good to eat to more than 150 food pantries and other organizations that serve food-insecure New Yorkers. Founded in Philadelphia in 2018, Sharing Excess took root in New York City two years ago as part of a national expansion and now distributes about a million pounds a month of whatever it can glean from the market.

Days when the sounds of machinery, chatter and shuffled boxes and pallets fill the air are typical at Sharing Excess, said its New York program director Miranda Potmesil. But the operation has grown increasingly busy as some food banks and pantries turn to food rescue to fill the gap left by the elimination of federal programs that previously helped them buy food from local farmers and producers.

In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture notified states that it was canceling future rounds of the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement program. Known in the state as New York Food for New York Families, the program provides funding to food banks, pantries, schools and other community organizations to purchase fresh vegetables, fruits, meats, dairy products and breads from local farmers and producers.

The state’s Department of Agriculture and Markets had received a total of $49.6 million through two previous rounds, but an expected new influx of $24 million now will not be coming from the USDA.

Since the federal program’s cancellation, Potmesil said Sharing Excess’ Hunts Point operation has added 18 organizations to its weekly and biweekly pickup schedules, as well as 12 additional groups for one-time or occasional pickups, resulting in 70,000 additional pounds of redistributed produce each week.

“This increase represents scarcity of resources — on the ground for the families and individuals we serve, but also for the organizations which have seen deep budget cuts to social safety net programs,” Potmesil said.

One of the emergency food providers adding more rescued food to its mix is New York Common Pantry — which procured 28,000 pounds of rescued food from Sharing Excess in June, up from just 9,000 in March. The group had received a $2 million grant through the state’s USDA-funded program — accounting for 13% of the organization’s operating budget, its executives told THE CITY in April.

“None of us are equipped,” said Judy Secon, the group’s deputy executive director. “We all need to be working together to confront this problem, and none of us have the available resources to do that.”

‘A Weight Off Our Shoulders’

A few blocks from the Sharing Excess warehouse, Cristofer Jorge operated a forklift at the Common Pantry warehouse, plopping large pallets of fresh cantaloupes, apples and grapes in between industrial racks stacked with canned lentils and tuna.

In an opposite corner, coworkers placed fresh grapes, peaches, potatoes and onions into clear bags, turning delivered boxes and pallets of food into groceries.

The rescued food “takes a weight off of our shoulders,” said warehouse supervisor Anthony Lallave, as he oversaw the packaging of grocery bags for distribution to schools, places of worship, housing projects and other community-based organizations, as well as Common Pantry’s own sites in East Harlem and Crotona Park East.

The New York Food for New York Families program helped Common Pantry purchase fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and breads —– foods that make up the bulk of the nutritionally balanced meals that pantries strive to offer their visitors. The USDA generally recommends that fruits and vegetables make up half of a meal, with proteins and grains making up the rest.

Sharing Excess is not the only group gleaning unwanted food: the Food Bank for New York City also rescues produce from the Hunts Point Market, and City Harvest has rescued and distributed to soup kitchens and pantries since the 1980s.

As in Philadelphia, Sharing Excess streamlines the process of rescuing food by operating from inside the wholesale market.

“Just based on work that we did there — we were capturing millions and millions of pounds even in the first year — we were like, okay, obviously this is something that is needed within the broader food supply chain,” Potmesil said. “Let’s see if we can make this work in another market.”

That level of access, Potmesil said, means that the organization can streamline supplies to a wide range of food providers, including other food rescue nonprofits.

Sharing Excess works with nearly all of the produce market’s vendors to retrieve foods that they otherwise can’t sell, potentially because the vendor has a surplus of a particular item. Supermarkets and other wholesale buyers also tend to want food that has a long shelf life, lasting up to a week after receiving it from a vendor, Potmesil said. With food rescue, she said, food is typically gleaned from the vendors, sorted and then distributed all on the same day.

The partnership is beneficial to the produce market’s vendors, too. Tossing food they haven’t yet sold requires vendors to pay for the cost of disposal, she said. But through the partnership, they receive tax deductions based on the poundage that they turn over to Sharing Excess.

For them, the thinking is also, “‘Why would I dump this stuff as opposed to feeding thousands of people?’” Potmesil said.

On a recent Friday, Jessica Ponce joined a line of dozens of people waiting to enter Corsi Houses Neighborhood Senior Center in East Harlem, where the nonprofit Ending Homelessness & Building a Better NYC was giving away food received from Sharing Excess.

Her 83-year-old mother lives in nearby senior housing and has been coming to the center for more than 20 years. She didn’t know that the food had been rescued from places like Hunts Point Market.

“Great!” she said, while looking at the idling Sharing Excess truck nearby. “If it’s gonna get damaged, you might as well give it to those who need it.”

Food banks, schools and other organizations historically used federal funding to grow their operations by expanding their hours, bringing in more product and volunteers, or changing their purchasing practices.

The Food Bank for New York City, for instance, used its New York Food for New York Families funding to develop a program where 30 BIPOC farmers learned more about marketing their products. The program also resulted in those farmers distributing 900,000 pounds of food through the Food Bank.

In 2022 and 2023, United Way of New York City used its $800,000 award to team up with the worker cooperative Brooklyn Packers, which distributed 300,000 pounds of fresh produce gleaned from 15 farm businesses.

Now, say executives, they are losing funding just as the people they serve are enduring a cost-of-living crisis.

“To lose a grant in communities where we have seen 132% of cost of living going up, and wages only going up by 75%, it’s detrimental to the organization, but also to the community,” said President and CEO of United Way of New York City Grace Bonilla.

The Met Council, a Jewish nonprofit that mostly distributes kosher and halal products, has also resorted to securing private funds, said CEO and Executive Director David Greenfield. Its previous $2 million grant helped the organization boost its ability to distribute foods like eggs, yogurt, chicken and milk, a service that he said they’ve now had to limit.

“We’re going to have to rely on city, state and private philanthropy to make up the difference, but no single source is going to be enough,” Greenfield said.