Where does LA's leftover produce go? This group helps get tons to the hungry every day
LOS ANGELES — It's 4:30 a.m. on a Tuesday and the lights are blazing at Food Forward's Pit Stop warehouse. Big trucks are lining up waiting their turn while forklifts whiz around the loading dock, pulling pallets of donated asparagus, lettuce and strawberries off one truck or pushing boxes of purple potatoes, green beans and heirloom tomatoes onto another headed to needy clients later in the day.
Everything moves fast at Food Forward — a nonprofit devoted to redistributing produce that would otherwise go to waste — because fruits and veggies don't last. When you're moving tons of food at the edge of its usefulness — an average of 250,000 pounds or 125 tons every day — no one can afford to dawdle.
The whole point of this hustle is to get food that would otherwise be wasted to hunger relief groups, who get the produce for free and must distribute it for free as
