The numbers are staggering. Denver nonprofit We Don’t Waste recovered more than 22.8 million servings of food in 2023 that otherwise would have gone to waste.
By its reckoning, that accounted for more than 7.5 million meals going to people in need, and it prevented more than 10.4 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions that would have been created if that food had gone to rot in landfills.
But the number of food-insecure people since the organization was founded in 2009 has grown, too. COVID was followed by rapidly rising food prices and the rising migration of people from poor countries to metro Denver.
“What we’ve seen is that while it doesn’t feel as chaotic, the need hasn’t really gone away,” said Kyle Endres, who succeeded We Don’t Waste founder Arlan Preblud as executive director in July. “Food prices haven’t gone back down to pre-COVID levels. SNAP funding (food benefits for low-income families) has gone back down to pre-pandemic levels, so you have families that are not receiving as much in SNAP assistance. We have a lot of newcomers from South America and Central America who have come here. We’ve seen a huge increase of those folks, as well as others, at our mobile markets.”
In the beginning, Preblud drove around town in a Volvo station wagon, collecting food that otherwise would have gone to waste and redistributing it to nonprofits that supported those in need. They opened an 11,000-square-foot distribution center in Adams County in 2017 and moved into a new home in Denver late last year that is nearly three times as big.
They have a fleet of five refrigerated trucks to collect and distribute food. Most of the food they collect goes to nonprofits, but they also conduct about eight mobile markets monthly.
“For some people, maybe it feels like it’s back to normal after COVID, but for food-insecure families this is the new normal,” Endres said. “It’s hard for us to know exactly what’s causing the increase, but we’re seeing an increase over the last couple of years. Our mobile markets are getting bigger and bigger and bigger, so more people are coming. Whether that’s because of food prices or inflation or some other factor, it’s hard to know, but there’s definitely an increase in need.”
Food rescue also has environmental ramifications.
“It’s pretty proven that food waste rotting in landfills contributes to climate change, so we are talking about a serious environmental issue, and food waste is a relatively easy (solution),” Endres said. “It’s a complicated issue, but it’s something people can understand — that we shouldn’t be throwing food away when it can be given to people who need it. It’s a win for the planet, it’s a win for people who receive our food, but it’s also a win for the nonprofits we serve because they don’t have to purchase as much food. They can redirect some of their funding to their other programming, whether it’s education, job training, workforce development.”
We Don’t Waste, a recipient of a Denver Post Season To Share grant, promotes other strategies to encourage the reduction of wasted food. It has an education component that explains reasons for reducing waste and ways to accomplish it. We Don’t Waste visits schools and conducts food waste audits of their cafeterias. The new headquarters has a classroom to expand its educational impact.
It also has a commercial kitchen. We Don’t Waste looks for ways to take food before it becomes unusable and cook it into something nutritious, and they create unusual recipes to share, such as banana peel carnitas and carrot top pesto. They’re testing an idea of making tie-dyed shirts using red-onion peels, carrot juice, turmeric and other colorful vegetables, thinking it would be a fun activity for kids visiting the We Don’t Waste classroom.
“We’re curious to see what happens after multiple washes, ” Endres said while showing off a rack where tie-dyed shirts were hung to dry, “to see if it washes out.”
We Don’t Waste
Address: 6090 E 39th Ave, Denver, 80207
In operation since: 2009
Number of employees: 23
Number of volunteers: 995
Annual budget: $14 million in 2023
Number of clients served: 117 nonprofit partners
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