Truckers help rescue food from going to waste in Johnson County

Truck drivers in eastern Iowa are doing more than delivering goods coast-to-coast. They are impacting food insecurity in a big way.

“I am involved in the food rescue operation as it pertains to overage, shortage and damage due to a 40+ year background in transportation and logistics,” explains Steve Smith, a retired food transport industry professional.

Steve now uses his years of experience as a volunteer for Table to Table, an Iowa City organization that bridges the gap between abundance and hunger. Volunteers collect surplus food from donors and redistribute it to partners and people who can use it.

One of T2T’s initiatives rescues food from truck drivers delivering into Johnson County. That’s where Steve comes in.

“There is a great need for such a program both from the perspective of the delivering drivers and as far as addressing food rescue in our community,” he adds.

Through food recovery and redistribution, T2T helps thousands of Johnson County residents annually. “We could not do this without critical food donors and key partnerships with the anti-hunger network,” says Nicki Ross, T2T’s Executive Director. Over the past year, T2T distributed 2.3 million pounds of food.

Here’s how the trucker rescue operation works.

“Forty percent of all the food produced in the U.S. goes to waste, most of that before ever reaching your plate. There’s a lot of opportunity for food waste along the supply chain with a substantial amount being lost during transit. Logistics miscommunication between vendor and customer results in the wrong item being delivered. Food is also lost due to mislabeling or incorrect packaging at the facility that is not caught until delivery. And then there are times when some, but not all, of the product is damaged during transit and is rejected then by the customer. Many times, despite the rejection, the product is still edible and nutritious,” details Ross.

The key, Smith notes, is making the process of donation more efficient for drivers. “The driver's primary interest is to deliver the product on time and safely to the receiver.”

This rejected food is a big problem, according to Ross. “The system is designed to carry food in one direction and it’s too complicated or not financially prudent to send it back to the production or warehouse facility. For drivers, the simplest solution is often finding the closest landfill to offload in order to keep to their already tight schedules.”

T2T wants to make donating food more appealing than “dumping perfectly good food.”

“We envision becoming a resource to these drivers as a place that will be readily available to either meet the truck with one of our vehicles and cross load the product into our vehicle or redirect the driver to a partner warehouse that can temporarily store the product until we are able to cycle it into our food pantry deliveries,” says Smith.

Now better positioned to accept trucker donations, drivers have delivered food to T2T an average of once per month, with donation sizes averaging three to five pallets or 3,500 pounds. “We’re still in the early stages of our pilot as we move beyond word-of-mouth outreach. We expect the program to grow substantially in the next few years,” Ross shares.

Donations often lead to unexpected outcomes.

“One day we got a call from a driver who said he had a couple pallets of oranges. Fresh fruit is a hot commodity, and we were excited about the opportunity. We rolled up to the parking lot and the driver opened the back of the truck only to find not oranges, but thousands of packages of brussels sprouts!” Fortunately, the families that received them were still happy, Ross adds.

“A few months ago, a local grocer called and said they had a driver with a rejected load of beef. Not just any beef, six hundred pounds of prime ribeye. We certainly wondered why something so valuable would be rejected if it was still food safe. It turns out that the product was a brand that the grocer didn’t sell. That’s it. The driver wasn’t going to waste a several hundred-mile return trip and the grocer couldn’t sell it. So that day, our neighbors went home with a rare offering!”

T2T expects transport industry donations to account for 5% of its total food recovery by 2026. “While 5% may not seem like a huge amount, most of these donations are high value meat, produce, or prepared foods. It will amount to 325,000 servings of protein and nearly 10,000 meals worth of other food types,” says Ross.

Smith knows truckers want to do their part.

“The drivers, if given a choice to get the food items to people that can safely benefit from them or to dump the food items in a waste site, will almost always opt to help other people.”

Table to Table Dispatcher Gina Hudson helps unload a 1,000-pound donation of food from a Casey's delivery truck in March 2023. The donation was the result of a product overage -- when the size of a delivery is more than what was ordered. (Photo courtesy of Table to Table)

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Table to Table Logistics Coordinator Chaim Jensen stands next to donated product that is being stored by Lineage Logistics. T2T receives OSD donations, which refer to product deliveries that are rejected because they are over, short or damaged, from truck drivers and local businesses. Lineage Logistics stores large T2T donations, including perishable food, at its Iowa City location, which T2T then distributes to local agencies that serve the hungry. (Photo courtesy of Table to Table)

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A shipment of strawberries is delivered to Table to Table in July 2023. The food was donated by one of the nonprofit's partners, which received more strawberries from a food transport vendor than it ordered and donated the excess. From left to right: Coralville Pantry Associate Director Hai Huynh, Table to Table Logistics Coordinator Chaim Jensen, Table to Table AmeriCorps member Marquis Heard and Coralville Pantry Delivery Coordinator Loyal Ulm. (Photo courtesy of Table to Table)

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