As part of its partnership with Cornell Cooperative Extension, Hannaford Supermarket donated $75,000 to support the expansion of gleaning, or food recovery, efforts in New York.

Hannaford officials said the company now sends zero food to landfills, and the food that is at risk of going to waste in its 184 stores is either donated or diverted.

“Following the EPA Food Recovery guidelines, which prioritize the donation of surplus food donations to individuals in need … has kept 65 million pounds of food out of our landfills in 2020,” said Ean Rose, Hannaford’s director of operations in the Hudson Valley.

Cornell Cooperative Extension offers a gleaning program, which harvests and recovers excess produce that would otherwise go to waste from local farms and directly delivers to food pantries and people in need.

“As part of the gleaning program, we'll be able to store some produce, which will extend its life a little bit longer, extend our ability to distribute it around to soup kitchens and food pantries,” said Stiles Najac, food security community coordinator at Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Jeff Bialas of J&A Farm says as part of the gleaning program, his role is to go through food items that are sent from other markets and are donated.

“I go through those things and make sure everything's up to par, so it's still great for human consumption,” Bialas said. “Anything that doesn't make the cut goes into my compost and eventually gets back into the fields; everything that's great still goes to Dan [Fross] and he'll take it right over to the food pantry every Wednesday.”

Fross, the Cornell Cooperative Extension gleaning project coordinator, takes over from there.

“So what I do is I look at what what's here, and I try to figure out where it's going to go, because every pantry has different needs,” Fross said. “And after you've worked with them for a while, you know what they're after food-wise.

“When I take the bags, I look to see what the freshness is on it. If it's kept [at a] temperature so that it's good for the people to eat at the pantries, and then it'll stay at their pantry while they're handing it out.”

Letting no food go to waste, the fresh food items are then delivered to a local food pantry in need.