What Is A Community Fridge?

What is a Community Fridge?

Community fridges are located across the United States and other countries outside of the USA as well. Think of it a free anonymous source of perishable food with 24×7 access. Anyone can drop off food they might have, but won’t use, and would otherwise go into a landfill. By offering excess food to another person in the community to enjoy, we’ve created a win/win. It’s like Christmas every day of the year when you feed someone a meal that they wouldn’t have otherwise been available. Not only can individual community members contribute, but businesses, restaurants, and food producers throw away food that had exceeded a “sell by” date and must remove it from their shelves, even though the food is good for anywhere up to 5-7 more days.

American’s throw away nearly 60 tons of food every year amounting to 30-40% of the ENTIRE food supply going to waste. 43% of that food comes right from our household kitchens. The tragedy is we could feed all homeless and food insecure in our nation with this rate of food disposal. Conservation must be a focus for all food production for the health and safety of the most vulnerable in our communities. It has also been documented that not only is the food filling our landfills, but is creating a large amount of methane gas that is 25%-80% more toxic that Carbon Dioxide due to improper oxygenation that is required to compost food waste properly.

These fridges are also filling a gap where the typical food pantry has limited hours and limited access to perishable food. This has been a long standing need in our communities, but also they do not undermine the important work of traditional food pantries and food drives that fill them with non-perishable food.

Community Fridges are new for our community and through the generous support of local non-profit organizations there are locations going up across our city and the collaboration has created community through CB Fridges. Each community fridge will host a location outside of their facility and supply electricity to host the site. Through community organizing and volunteer organizations stepping forward along with businesses support, the fridges will be supplied excess food that would otherwise be discarded. Now that food will no longer go to waste and will be made available inside each fridge for the patrons to come and get their next meal. With these key food donations, locations hosting the fridges, and the volunteers that support them; we are feeding our community and saving our environment. WIN- WIN!!!

Check out the food waste FAQ’s from the USDA to learn more about food waste reduction opportunities.