Upcycling On-Farm Food Waste Through Gleaning and Education

Concrete Jungle provides a simple solution to two complex issues—food waste and food access—by harvesting and procuring neglected produce from fruit trees and farms to serve families facing food insecurity. The Concrete Jungle team can frequently be found under a fruit tree or in a field picking produce. Our mission is foraging, farming, and supporting food access across Georgia.

During the pandemic, we expanded our programming to work with farmers to purchase their seconds, or produce that they've harvested but can’t sell to their traditional retail markets because it doesn't look like what people want to see at the grocery store. We prioritize putting money back into the pockets of farmers and we're excited to be able to continue to do that with our SARE project. We estimate that we're collecting less than 10% of the produce that's going to waste on farms in south Georgia. We're hoping to increase that number through this grant, some of which will go to training farmers about what is actually acceptable for us to use.

All the produce that we purchase goes straight to soup kitchens and food pantries based in Atlanta. We're getting more and more calls every day from people saying that they can't find any food anywhere else. The timing of this grant could not be better for us.

The other aspect of this grant, in addition to training farmers and purchasing produce, is training eaters. None of our produce goes out without a recipe card, because some of our produce looks funky, not like what you're not used to seeing. We provide recipe cards, cooking classes, and taste tests at the soup kitchens and food pantries. We're building up a larger farmer network we can purchase food from, but we're also building up a more informed and excited consumer base at the soup kitchens and food pantries.