We’ve got 4 fun facts to share about our food donation partner, Whole Foods Market. Ready? Go!

4. Supporters since Day One: Ever since there has been a Whole Foods at Prospect Street, River Street, Fresh Pond, and Beacon Street, they’ve been donating their excess food to Food For Free.

3. Prepared Foods Rescuers: Whole Foods was one of our first donors for our Prepared Foods Rescue program, which has now become an integral part of our Food Rescue work. In the beginning, it was just Harvard University and Whole Foods Market.

2. Funding as well as food: Whole Foods knows that a robust food rescue program requires not just food, but also funding to pay for things like fuel, trucks, space, and staff time.

They’ve made significant monetary contributions through their Whole Night Madness and 5% Day shopping benefits, and helped us fundraise by sponsoring our recent Empty Bowls benefit.

And, most significantly of all:

1. Our largest food donor: 41% of all the food we rescued last year came from Whole Foods! Can you imagine if all that good food went to compost instead? Instead, our five partner stores—Prospect Street, River Street, Fresh Pond, Somerville, and Medford—work hard to make sure that their surplus food ends up on a Food For Free truck, headed out to people who need it.

As Community Liaison Matthew Keller says, “We take pride knowing that we can help get healthy meals to the community with something that could easily be discarded.”

Thank you to all of the wonderful people who make food rescue happen at Whole Foods Market—we couldn’t do it without you!
Matthew Keller, Community Liaison for Whole Foods Market, with Sasha Purpura, Food For Free’s Executive Director, at our 2016 Empty Bowls benefit