Bulk food donations mean more food for all CFR members

Megan Joe, Director of Operations at So What Else, a non-profit service organization, had 15 pallets of potatoes to share quickly. As a Community Food Rescue (CFR) network member, she used a new feature in CFR’s ChowMatch app to offer the potatoes to other CFR network food assistance providers. Within a few hours, many bags of potatoes were claimed and they were distributed within two days.

One of CFR’s overall goals is to provide surplus food to as many of the 115 CFR network organizations as possible. “Often, the food donations we receive are in large quantities and perishable,” explained Cheryl Kollin, CFR Program Director. “We need to move fresh local produce quickly, while it is still good to consume. Yet, many of the organizations can only take small amounts of food and have monthly distributions, which poses logistical challenges.”

The solution? CFR now offers bulk donations through our ChowMatch app. Prior to this new feature, food had been solely donor-driven, meaning that food businesses offered their donation on ChowMatch, and the app instantly auto-matched it with one of the CFR member recipient organizations. Now with bulk donations, and just a few clicks, donors can offer bulk surplus food through ChowMatch, which notifies CFR network members via email that they can view the donation details in their ChowMatch account. If they want to receive some of the offered food, they fill out a short form with the amount desired, timeframe and whether they can pick up or need delivery.

So What Else distributed pallets of potatoes through CFR’s new bulk donation feature in ChowMatch

We had our first opportunity to try So What Else’s bulk food donations in May. In this test, we offered the bags of potatoes to 10 organizations. Within a few hours, three CFR member organizations successfully requested bags of potatoes through ChowMatch. One of the county’s food hubs, Harvest Church Mid-County Hub, picked up 2,000 lbs. of potatoes and The Islamic Society of the Washington Area picked up 1,000 lbs. Mishkan Hashofar, a smaller organization, requested 600 lbs., and ChowMatch instantly created a food run that was delivered by a volunteer food runner. In this first test, 3,600 lbs. of potatoes were distributed in two days.

“After we do a few more test bulk donation offers this summer, we will make this feature available to our whole network of food assistance providers. That way, each organization can choose a lot or just a few items offered,” explained Cheryl. ChowMatch keeps track of the available inventory as CFR members make requests and will end the offer once all the inventory is claimed. Just like all the food offered through CFR, this service is free to all food donors and food assistance providers.

Woman receives a 5 lb. bag of potatoes from the Islamic Society of Greater Washington as part of CFR’s new bulk distribution that passes out food in smaller sizes so that more food assistance providers can make these foods available to their clients.

We rely on the generosity of businesses to donate their surplus, unsold food and to the larger food assistance providers, like So What Else, to redistribute their surplus through the CFR network.  We are grateful to CFR’s volunteer food runners who deliver food if an organization cannot pick it up. Since CFR’s inception in 2014, thanks to county and private funding, we’ve been able to distribute more than eight million lbs. to food assistance providers throughout Montgomery County.

To learn more about and join the CFR network, visit Community Food Rescue, and click on either Donate, Feed, or Deliver, depending on your role.