“What does this sell by date mean on my jug of milk? Can I still use it in my breakfast cereal, or is it past the point of no return?”
The Bottom Line
Manufacturers want grocers to turn their product. Grocers don’t want returns or complaints on food that’s lost some of its “ooomf”. Consumers want some guidance on how long their food will be good. All of these are reasons for offering food dates, but it may not be a reason for throwing food away.
According to USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (1):
A “Best if Used By/Before” date indicates when a product will be of best flavor or quality. It is not a purchase or safety date.
A “Sell-By” date tells the store how long to display the product for sale for inventory management. It is not a safety date.
A “Use-By” date is the last date recommended for the use of the product while at peak quality. It is not a safety date except for when used on infant formula
A “Freeze-By” date indicates when a product should be frozen to maintain peak quality. It is not a purchase or safety date.
Did you notice a common theme in those definitions? “It is not a safety date…”
So, your best-by date on canned green beans? If you’re a year past your date and there’s no damage to your can, your beans may just taste a little less green-beany.
And since a sell-by date is all about inventory management for a grocery store and not your fridge, you may be able to eat those eggs for a month or so after their sell-by date.
It’s not too late, you can still order your recipe book and access to this awesome week of events!
TUESDAY AM: Welcome!
Get a digital copy of the recipe book delivered to your inbox…the printed copy is on the way!
TUESDAY PM: Food Waste 101
Food rescue starts at home! To do that, you have to understand the basics. How can you prevent food waste, what can you still eat and when, and if you can’t eat it, what are some alternatives to throwing it away? Throughout the week we’ll help you come up with creative ways to use the food you have. Our handy guidelines will prepare you to get cooking. Kick off the week by taking the Fridge Food Check – Stop Food Waste! Share your experience with us on Facebook or via email and we’ll enter you to win a gift card or gift from one of our sponsors.
Mix up a food rescued lunch with Emily, hear from a route volunteer about our unique food rescue model, and learn how Table to Table delivers 2.5 million pounds of food to our neighbors for just 15 cents a pound! Maybe by the end you’ll want to adopt your very own local food rescue route! We have many to choose from and they all play a critical part in addressing hunger in our community.
THURSDAY: Rescue Your Fridge Food
Got milk? Got old milk?! How about some soft apples or limp celery in your refrigerator? Check your email on Thursday and learn ways to clear out your refrigerator without throwing food away! Just like leftovers, many of those less-than-entirely fresh foods can be utilized in tasty and nutritious meals for yourself and your family.
FRIDAY: Cooking with our Community Partners
Ever wonder what happens to those thousands of pounds of food we rescue each week? Who better to share how to use rescued food than the chefs who do it every day to feed hundreds of our neighbors. Tune in on Friday when we’ll be joined by local chefs in the kitchens of the Salvation Army and Shelter House as they prepare nutritious meals for their guests using food rescued by Table To Table that same day.
All Week Long
Wildwoods Farms, Local Harvest, and Trader Joe’s
Don’t miss your chance to win a July CSA share from Wildwoods Farm, a garden starter kit from Local Harvest CSA or a bundle of goodies ($150 Value) from Trader Joe’s!
Bonus Recipes
Recipe book holders will receive free bonus recipes! Local professional chefs aren’t the only ones that can cook and bake, as our very own Table to Table staff and volunteers share their favorite old family recipes and tips for home-cooked meals.
Best of all, throughout the week you can “Ask Emily” as our resident expert offers creative and tasty ways to prepare meals at home using leftovers, food found on your shelves and rescued from your refrigerator. Trust me, you will be glad you “asked Emily!”
What happens to a school group’s snack fund when school is canceled? It goes to providing snacks for the community! The Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program (NWP) donated $200 from their snack fund to help Table to Table rescue food that can provide vital support to community members all over Johnson County. This donation came from the group’s belief that “A good meal, shared with others, is emotionally nourishing, too, and since we can’t gather right now, we wanted to find the best way to pass that spirit along!”
The University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program’s 2019 graduates celebrate during a garden party hosted by faculty member Bonnie Sunstein at her home in Iowa City, Iowa. ALL rights available to NWP 2019 class.
The NWP students take up a collection at the beginning of each school year to establish their snack fund. This money typically goes towards keeping their snack jar filled through the year and catering a graduation celebration in the spring, but due to the physical closure of the University of Iowa campus, they were left with the decision to carry over the funds or put them to use helping the community. They chose the latter, much to our delight!
A local seventh-grader, Izzy Mooney, recently reached out to Table to Table about a research project she conducted to better understand how different nonprofits in the Iowa City area were responding to the Covid-19 crisis. Izzy eagerly took up this project initiated by her parents to keep her engaged and learning while out of school. She narrowed in on how several local organizations were addressing hunger relief and put together a report. After presenting her findings to her parents, she recommended the family make a donation to Table to Table to support our work during this crisis.
She was excited to share her research with us, and was surprised about how much we do to rescue food:
“I learned so much about food pantries…[I can’t believe] you can rescue six cans of food for $0.96.”
Since her dad works at Microsoft, her donation will be matched by Microsoft’s employee match outreach program in the mission of supporting nonprofits around the globe.
We want to thank Izzy and the Mooney family for demonstrating the importance of civic engagement, especially during times of crisis. Their donation will deliver nearly 2,000 pounds of food to our neighbors in need.
At the beginning of March, Table to Table experienced a volunteer shortage unlike any we’ve ever had. As you’re probably aware, routes are supported almost entirely by volunteers who serve 2-3 hours each week for more than 50 food rescue deliveries. You may not know that T2T also relied heavily on volunteers for a variety of other important operational tasks including preparing vehicles for routes, maintaining and sanitizing the facility, entering and analyzing food rescue data, tracking our fleet maintenance and billing, and more. Without those volunteers, many of those tasks beyond sanitation and preparing for routes ground to a halt.
Lucky for us, AmeriCorps members whose roles have been suspended with other projects reached out to us looking for volunteer opportunities. Reading Corps AmeriCorps member, Andrew, and Green Iowa AmeriCorps member, Nick, have joined us nearly full time to support Table to Table operations.
Nick Simone
Nick is a logistics coordinator for Green Iowa AmeriCorps Energy & Community program where he conducted residential energy audits in Iowa City. Energy audits help homeowners identify sources of air leakage and energy inefficiencies within their home. Fixing these issues saves money and energy while also increasing the healthiness of a home. Nick graduated from the University of Iowa in 2019 with a BBA in Marketing and a Certificate of Sustainability.
With a background in sustainability, Nick has been an excellent addition to the team and has taken on daily program coordination tasks in addition to coordinating food rescue data. Tracking this data in a timely and accurate manner helps ensure we know what food is coming in and that each organization is getting what they need.
In just under a week, it’s clear Nick is already dedicated to the T2T mission,
“I didn’t realize how much food Table to Table is able to redistribute to people in need. Being an advocate of sustainability, it makes me happy to see food that would otherwise be thrown away being used for its purpose, eating.”
Andrew Winkers
Andrew is part of the AmeriCorps ReadingCorps team with the Iowa City School District. The ReadingCorps program serves K-3rd grade students who are on the border between at risk and proficient in reading. They utilize several interventions that range from practicing letter sounds to reading one-page stories as “newscasters” to encourage conversational reading and improve overall comprehension skills. Andrew graduated with a BA in English and a certificate in writing from the University of Iowa and its Magid Center in 2019.
Andrew joined us at the beginning of April to help coordinate our work with the Food with Love project, help with daily program coordination, and to write blog posts and e-news articles about our work during this crisis.
Andrew has found being a part of the Table to Table team has been awe-inspiring and a jovial atmosphere,
“I am in awe of the quantity of food that Table to Table is able to rescue and redistribute in Johnson county. I enjoy the camaraderie among the volunteers and staff and the overall positivity that is cultivated through this organization.”
Ellie Paxson
Ellie is currently an AmeriCorps member with Iowa Valley Habitat for Humanity. She is working with Table to Table during this time as a way to support the vital social services in our community. She’s a whiz at data entry and is helping recruit and record new volunteers as well as process financial donations.
Ellie graduated from the University of Iowa in May of 2019 with a BS in Psychology and a minor in Human Relations.
She is excited to get the chance to work for another non-profit in Iowa City. She says,
“This community is so supportive and involved, especially during times of crisis.”
Yusef Abuissa
Yusef is serving in the Energy and Community branch of the Green Iowa AmeriCorps. His job is to be knowledgeable in home science and lead home energy audits/weatherizations. He conducts safety tests and air leak tests to measure how much air leaks into a home before letting homeowners know how leaky their home is, and he recommends air sealing processes.
As an undergrad at the University of Iowa, Yusef recently swapped majors from Biology to Environmental Policy and Planning and plans to go back to school after finishing his year of service with AmeriCorps.
As a recent addition to Table to Table, Yusef’s dedication to rescuing food is inspiring, and he illustrates a common awe in his first reactions to our program’s operation,
“What I enjoy most is the satisfaction of supporting an organization that does something incredible. The food waste built into our society is immensely off-putting to me, and the fact that it can then go to help people and families who can’t afford food while maintaining their dignity puts a smile on my face.”
Table to Table is continuing to rescue food with additional safety precautions in place. Table to Table delivers more than 40,000 pounds of food each week to thousands of people who need it. Our mission to feed our most vulnerable neighbors is especially critical right now — people will need access to basic necessities more than ever if they experience unpaid time off or closures of other social services.
We are working to continue our operations to the best of our ability, and the safety and well-being of our recipients, volunteers, food donors and staff is our top priority. We are reducing and restructuring routes to limit contact between people as much as possible, increasing the frequency of our cleaning and disinfecting procedures, and requiring volunteers/staff to stay home if they are not feeling well.
More than half of our regular volunteers are at high risk for complications from COVID-19 or have a close family member who is vulnerable. They must temporarily suspend their volunteer duties for their safety or the safety of their family.
While we have reduced the number of daily food rescue routes, we will still need additional volunteers in order to continue operations. Any individual who is well and not at high risk for this illness who is interested in providing volunteer support, please email volunteer@table2table.org or call 319-337-3400. We need help boxing and loading food from grocery stores and transporting food to local food pantries and shelters. Table to Table vehicles are provided. Food rescue routes run 8 a.m.-noon Monday-Saturday, and typically take 2-3 hours. Please also consider making a financial donation to help us pay for fuel, vehicle maintenance and staffing needed to continue our operation. Go to https://table2table.org/donateonline/
We are closely monitoring recommendations by the CDC and Iowa Department of Public Health and will continue making adjustments to our services and operations as needed. Thank for supporting hunger relief in Johnson County. Working together is a cornerstone of our mission, we trust we will get through this crisis by continuing to do just that.
The impact of our grant from Frontier Co-op to purchase a new refrigerated vehicle and one year lease on our refrigerated “big truck” can be best illustrated by the “Great Yogurt Boon of 2017”. On a Wednesday in mid-September we received a call that a local food warehouse had 8 pallets, nearly 9000 pounds of yogurt to donate. Nine thousand pounds of yogurt and the expiration was more than a month away! What a windfall! In fact, dairy is one of the most needed items for agencies serving the hungry in our community.
However, 4 tons of dairy that needs to be refrigerated presents its own challenges. Since no single partner agency can store or redistribute food in those quantities, we needed a storage and distribution plan. With our two new vehicles, we were able to accommodate this challenge with little difficulty. Our new 22ft refrigerated had the capacity to transport and keep cool all 8 pallets. We were able to use the truck as a temporary warehouse and work over the course of several hours to distribute this high value food to more than 15 local programs.
Even so, at the end of the day, we still had 800 pounds of yogurt remaining, which was not likely to fit in the 7 household sized refrigerators we have back at Table to Table. So, we transferred the remaining yogurt to the new transit van we purchased with the help of Frontier Co-op. We can actually plug this new vehicle’s refrigeration system into a wall outlet, thereby expanding our refrigerated warehouse space to 350 cubic feet. By storing the yogurt for the next 36 hours, we were able to find additional recipients in need of dairy. Local after school programs received more than 50 cases to serve as snacks and small pantries with minimal storage capacity received a second delivery after distributing the first load of yogurt early in the week.
These organizations served around 3,000 individuals with this single delivery. Without these new vehicles, this nutritious and high need food would have either gone to waste or been diverted away from those in need right here in our community. Thank you to Frontier for helping keep good food from going to waste and feeding 19,500 hungry people.
As Program Manager, Emily will manage the day to day operations of our food rescue efforts. We are so lucky Emily has agreed to take on this new role at Table to Table. You may not know it, but Emily has a few key superpowers that make her perfect for her new role.
With her compassionate manner and infectious smile, she makes everyone feel comfortable and welcome, which is especially important since she works directly with more than 100 volunteers each week who are the heart of the Table to Table mission.
Emily is also extremely organized. With her background in both science and fine arts, she is uniquely able to consider the logistics of our food rescue operations. Scheduling more than 700 pick-ups and deliveries each month and managing the schedules of more than 80 volunteers is as much art as science.
She also parlays this skill set into what her friends and family have termed a “refrigerator magic”. Never doubt the amount of stuff she can fit into a refrigerator. With Emily on task, a refrigerator is never out of space.
Emily has been part of the Table to Table mission for a year and a half, and prior to her staff position here, she volunteered with us! A few of her proudest moments at Table to Table include learning all of the volunteers’ names (we have a lot so that’s impressive) and helping to secure a grant from Frontier Natural Products to lease what we call the “big truck” to aid in picking up large scale donations. Her favorite parts of her everyday work include interacting with our dedicated volunteers and helping people get better access to healthy, wholesome food. Her predecessor and mentor, David Wellendorf says,
“I know from working with Emily she cares dearly about the environment and not wasting anything”
In fact, she describes this commitment as also one of her biggest challenges.
“It is hard to say no…when we don’t have the capacity to take on a donation or a client I have a really hard time if I know there is food to be rescued and people to help, and we simply can’t do it because we are already maxed out.”
What inspires Emily the most is also what inspires us about her.
“Humanity – witnessing kindness in unexpected places, triumph against adversity”.
Regardless of the day or what else she has going on, Emily’s kindness to others is unmatched. She is always there working hard, stepping up when the organization needs her most, and doing it all with a smile on her face and joy in her heart.
Want to congratulate Emily on her new role or have a question about Table to Table’s food rescue operation? Shoot Emily an email anytime at emily@table2table.org
Join us in welcoming Nicki Ross to the Table to Table team! Nicki has dedicated her entire career to bettering the lives of those around her. An expert in nonprofit operations, development, and digital marketing strategy, Nicki knows how to build a brand and engage communities in a shared mission. Previously a senior strategist at Geonetric, Nicki worked with hospitals around the country to use digital marketing to help health consumers find care. Prior to Geonetric, she spent several years in leadership at nonprofits and public institutions. She served as development and communications manager at the Catherine McAuley Center, program director of the Boys and Girls Club and Women’s Center director at UW-Parkside.
As the new executive director, she is excited to help Table to Table deliver on its mission,
“I’m so thrilled to get to be a part of the great work Table to Table has been doing for more than 20 years. Every year dedicated volunteers and staff keep more wholesome, edible food from going to waste and get it to those who need it most right here in our own community. Now, I get to be a part of that and I can’t wait to get started.”
Nicki holds bachelor’s degrees in organizational studies and gender studies from the University of Wisconsin – Parkside and is completing her master’s degree in public administration at Drake University. When she’s not finding new ways to reduce food insecurity at Table to Table, you can find Nicki volunteering to raise awareness for homelessness and literacy or teaching her parrot Larry a new phrase.
Want to know more? You can meet Nicki at one of several upcoming events or contact her directly by email or by phone (319) 337-3400.
