Annual Impact Report 2021
Food Forward
Annual Report
2021
Food Forward now distributes an average of 250,000 pounds of food each day – enough produce to supply over 150,000 individuals with their five daily servings of fruits and vegetables.
THIS IS OUR IMPACT
By breaking down barriers that limit access to fresh and healthy food, Food Forward promotes wellness, education, and nutritious produce to help shorten the Health Equity gap.
Nearly 35 percent of the food supply in the United States — more than 133 billion pounds — goes to waste. Food Forward’s produce recovery model reduces food waste to deliver long-term Environmental Benefits.
In 2021, Food Forward distributed 67 million pounds of fresh produce in 12 California counties, as well as six adjacent states and tribal lands, resulting in vast Economic Impact to the hundreds of food insecure communities we serve.
CEO MESSAGE
One of the only things that is constant on this magnificent and fragile planet of ours is change, and 2021 more than any year has borne that out. We are all in a state of constant change, which the optimist in me feels is, or at least can become, an evolution.
Food Forward has been in its own constant state of change since it sprouted nearly 13 years ago – but these recent two years have been different. It’s grown into what feels like a new organization: in size and scale, Board and volunteer involvement, culture, and most importantly, impact.
2020 was the year Food Forward stared down a historic national food emergency, meeting the moment to empower millions of people experiencing food insecurity in Southern California communities, across six adjacent states and tribal lands reaching all the way to the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma. 2021 was the year we began growing into our new skin.
During this period, we saw some of our key staff move on to new adventures, but we also gained a number of exceedingly talented teammates who are busy building out a new Food Forward as one of the nation’s most impactful and innovative nonprofits tackling food insecurity and the flip side of the environmental ramifications of food waste.
This is happening at a rate that still is jaw-dropping: an average of 250,000 pounds per work day – or, seen another way – enough produce to supply over 150,000 individuals their USDA-recommended five daily servings of fruits and vegetables.
In 2021, we came to better understand our work as a significant booster to health equity in historically marginalized communities, our positive role in curbing the effects of climate change, and our economic impact on the economy.
Pulling together to accomplish all this work comes deep gratitude for the chance to embrace our “new normal” – and make the most of the challenges foisted upon us all. Gratitude not just for the staff who has pivoted, dug deeper and in doing so discovered greater resilience and innovation, and a board and advisors who clocked more hours than in any year past, but to our partners who continued to help us get our produce the last mile, the volunteers who stepped up in new ways, the produce donors, farmers, and homeowners who make this work possible, and the many funders – those who’ve walked beside us for years and those who found us during the darkest days of COVID-19, then re-upped with us for another year.
I hope we can each reflect on the good we will take from this beyond challenging time – see the opportunities ahead in 2022, and most importantly, support each other as we renew our commitment to SHARE THE ABUNDANCE.
Rick Nahmias
Founder & CEO
BY THE NUMBERS
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Annual Report design by Joseph Finucane
