Cultivate Food Rescue breaks ground on cold storage facility
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Cultivate Food Rescue broke ground Tuesday on a new, 22,000-square-foot cold storage facility.
The South Bend-based not-for-profit serves children and adults across St. Joseph, Elkhart and Marshall counties through partnering with local grocery stores, restaurants and food retailers to “rescue” food that would otherwise go to waste.
The expansion is expected to help Cultivate broaden its reach to more than 200 regional food pantries and social service agencies.
The new cold storage facility will allow the organization to rescue 19 million pounds of perishable food a year, Executive Director Jim Conklin said in a news release, expanding Cultivate’s capacity by 19 times more than what the organization can handle today.
The facility is expected to help rescue more than $47 million worth of meals that would otherwise go to waste, Conklin said.
“This facility is no just about expanding our operations,” he said. “It’s about transforming the lives of food insecure neighbors who don’t know where their next meal is coming from and created a sustainable future for our community.”
All of Indiana’s counties are affected by food insecurity, yet the United States wastes 40%, or 133 billion pounds, of the food it produces annually, Cultivate’s press release states, citing data from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Since its creation, Cultivate has rescued more than 4.7 million pounds of food, serving 800,000 meals to students, neighbor and pantry partners.
The expansion will help Cultivate provide nearly two meals a day to every food-insecure child and one daily meal to 62% of vulnerable adults and children living in poverty within the nonprofit’s service area, Conklin said.
DJ Construction and Tippmann Group of Fort Wayne are working on the project which Cultivate leaders expect will finish by summer 2024.
Cultivate is in the midst of a $10 million capital campaign to help fund the project. You can learn more by clicking here.