Extrafood Expands its Reach
Rescuing fresh food otherwise bound for the waste stream to feed Marin’s most vulnerable children, adults and families is a primary mission of ExtraFood. A volunteer-driven organization launched in 2013, ExtraFood’s special niche is that it picks up “extra” food from donor organizations and businesses, including many local grocers and farmers’ markets, and immediately delivers the recovered food to other organizations serving those in need—currently around 120 sites throughout the county.
This magazine covered ExtraFood in our Winter 2015 issue [http://ediblemarinandwinecountry.ediblecommunities.com/food-thought/extra-food-org-tackles-food-waste-and-hunger-technology-and-love ]. In the years since, the organization’s founder and CEO, Marv Zauderer, and his team have worked tirelessly to increase ExtraFood’s reach. While Wine Country wildfires raged in 2017 and 2018, ExtraFood’s network was pressed into service in ways it had not anticipated. “We had this entire ecosystem of partners in place,” Zauderer says. “As shelters were springing up, we were able to determine what the food needs were and get meals to those shelters.” More recently, ExtraFood provided meals to Coast Guard families impacted by the federal government shutdown.
As the organization sought to expand its ongoing service area, the maximum time limit of 30-minutes door-to-door [without refrigeration] became more challenging, so this past March, ExtraFood purchased a 14-foot refrigerated delivery truck. According to Zauderer, the truck increases EstraFood’s outreach capability in two important ways: it expands the geographic area the organization is able to service, and also their overall capacity—augmenting the work of the dedicated team of individual volunteers who pick up and deliver food using their own vehicles. ExtraFood’s refrigerated truck now makes regular visits to the Marin coast, serving the many fishing and agricultural workers who live and work there.
