More Kern cities should emulate Arvin’s approach to healthy food
Legacy: When someone from the grave continues to make a difference. My friend Olivia Trujillo, deceased mayor of Arvin, has such an impactful legacy. While other cities in Kern and California ignore a great opportunity to feed their hungry and poor, Arvin has stepped up in a big way. Though recently deceased, Trujillo, through her children and her inspiration, is making sure the folks in Arvin can easily access healthy food, virtually free.
Prior to her passing, Trujillo worked closely with Shari Rightmer and Blanky Centeno from the not-forprofit Laborers of the Harvest to set up the infrastructure to ensure edible, fresh food destined for waste facilities reached Arvin’s working poor instead. She found a facility, worked on transportation, storage and logistics, and now, months later, Arvin has a food distribution system where six days a week anyone, not just Arvin citizens, pay a small maintenance fee and fill three bags of fresh groceries for free, gleaned daily from the same stores where you and I spend hundreds.
That’s because by law generators like the grocery stores we go to can’t sell their food after the “sell by” date. That doesn’t mean the food has gone bad. Depending on the food, it generally has plenty of life left. Therein lies the opportunity to fight hunger and reduce waste. By working with organizations who educate these generators to maximize their food recovery and by setting up the logistics in Arvin to get this food there quickly, Mayor Trujillo has left this lasting legacy.
Per Olivia Calderon, Mayor Trujillo’s daughter, “In a grocery store, you’ll have various dates like ‘sell by’ date, ‘use by’ date, and ‘freeze by’ date. These dates have nothing to do with the expiration of the
food. The food is still good to eat, it just means that (the grocery stores) can no longer sell it.” In a Channel 23 report by Priscilla Lara aired July 2, according to the USDA, “packaged foods are safe to eat even if the date passes unless spoilage is evident.”
Sadly, only Arvin seems to have figured out the opportunity this new law, SB 1383, provides. Per CalRecycle, the state agency in charge of ensuring implementation, SB 1383 requires large and now medium size food waste generators to “recover the maximum amount of edible food.” So far, this law is being poorly implemented in most communities in Kern and throughout California, resulting in a wasted opportunity.
But in Arvin, Trujillo teamed up with LOTH and coordinated collection, storage, and distribution events to make sure fresh and healthy food, not just canned goods and bulky items, gets redistributed in a timely, healthy manner. LOTH even has a County Health Department Grade A certificate for its food distribution procedures.
Unfortunately, CalRecycle and most jurisdictions have taken a minimalist approach. Though the law demands maximum diversion, CalRecycle is basically only asking for good recordkeeping when it evaluates local compliance. Jurisdictions in Kern are more worried about paperwork than the good they might do. The result is this lost opportunity, great amounts of edible food in our waste stream, and hunger and disease instead of healthier outcomes.
Healthy outcomes are especially needed in Kern, where a July 8 Californian article by Steven Mayer identified Kern as California’s worst county for obesity and diabetes. A typical LOTH daily haul is large quantities of leafy, fresh vegetables and fruit. That’s because in your typical grocery stores, these are the foods taken off the shelf most rapidly. Without the fast turnaround that LOTH provides, these foods are destined for spoilage. These are also the nutritional foods most likely to ease our current public health challenges of obesity and diabetes. So why aren’t our health and waste departments seizing this opportunity?
Like so many CalRecycle mandates, SB 1383 is another example of overreaching and underperforming. Jurisdictions throughout Kern and the rest of California placed large rate increases on their ratepayers, only to minimize food recovery. The jurisdictions and waste haulers got more money to compost food, not recover it. Meanwhile the cash-strapped not-for-profits like Gleaners and LOTH, those doing the work of diverting this food, got nothing. When they fold for lack of funds, and several are very close to folding, this opportunity will have passed.
Maybe there’s hope on the horizon. Blue Zones, an Adventist Health organization, teaming up with CAPK, United Way and other interested stakeholders, hs convened a Food Policy Council (their last meeting was July 9) to discuss food policy. One of their strategic aims is to address food insecurity. Will this Council replicate, expand or improve on this successful Arvin model? One can only hope.
It’s not often one hears Arvin leads the way in Kern but thanks to Rightmer, Trujillo, her daughter Olivia Calderon, and others likeminded to serve and give, Arvin is the example for other communities to emulate. For the rest of Kern, if we want healthier outcomes, maybe we should adopt similar, healthier approaches. It sure makes more sense than throwing good food away.