- Hey, everyone.

Steve Adubato.

Ever wonder why so much food is being wasted, what happens to that food, and what could and, what should we be doing with that food?

Here to talk about that and so much more is Heather Thompson, who's executive director of an organization called Table to Table, trying to make a difference.

Their website is up as we speak.

Heather, great to have you with us.

- Good morning.

Thanks for having me.

- Hey Heather, what is up with more than three billion pounds of food is wasted each year just in the state of New Jersey?

A, why is that happening?

B, more importantly, what the heck should we be doing?

- Hey, it's really a staggering number.

And it happens for a lot of reasons, right?

We all know that sometimes we're wasting food in our own homes.

We're not eating leftovers.

We're letting produce sit too long, and then we're saying, "Oh, this isn't good anymore.

I'm gonna toss it."

So a lot of waste does happen at the household level, but what a lot of people don't recognize is how much waste happens also all along the food supply chain.

So we're talking about crops that go unharvested from farms, and that might just be that the farmers are, you know, planting enough to make sure that they have sufficient product to move to market, but then they don't end up harvesting everything.

It happens at the manufacturing level.

It certainly happens at the retail level.

People pass over food that's perfectly good because it doesn't look quite right.

It's too small or there's a mark on it.

So all of that food can end up in landfill unless there's a deliberate choice to divert it to where it needs to go.

- And restaurants as well.

- Restaurants, caterers, everywhere.

- What does table to, sorry, sorry for interrupting, Heather.

What does Table to Table do to try to, you're a food rescue organization, not a food bank.

We're partners with the Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

That's a different discussion.

- Right.

- What's food rescue?

- Food rescue is really a model by which an organization like ours, Table to Table, can get out, work with all of these different food businesses, retailers, manufacturers, distributors, farms, meet them at their food business, pick up their surplus, and immediately deliver it out to community.

So we're working with food that's highly perishable.

We're delivering it right away in real time out to a network of hundreds of pantries, shelters, community kitchens, distributions, making sure that that food gets into the hands of people who need it before it goes bad.

- So we'll put up the website again right now, and this is the question I'm sure a lot of people are asking.

I'm wondering it myself because there, I know I waste food.

I know I do.

And I know what happens in our family, and I know at a restaurant, I'm like, "Yeah, well, I'm trying to cut back."

And okay, you just wasted all that food.

- Right.

- What about putting in a, "Well, no, I don't want to take it home."

And I don't think twice about, until I was getting ready for this program, I thought, "Wait a minute, there's so many people that are food insecure.

So many people are going hungry."

- Right.

- What could and should we be doing?

We don't solve the problem, but we can help.

- Yes.

- What could and should, Heather, we be doing to be part of the solution?

- So there are a lot of ways that absolutely anyone can be part of the solution.

Being mindful, as you just mentioned, right, of wasting less food at home, of bringing your leftovers home from your restaurant, or maybe not ordering as much.

But when it comes to the model of food rescue and how people can get involved, we have an app called our I-Rescue app.

- Anybody living in Northern New Jersey, you can download this app from your Apple Store, your Google Store.

And it essentially organizes volunteers to run smaller scale rescues.

So when there's leftover meals from a school cafeteria or a farmer's market has a few boxes of things that didn't sell, a volunteer can mobilize to go pick that up, and we've already prearranged where it's going to go, getting it to a local place that's open and ready to receive it.

And the rescues are all within a couple of miles.

It takes less than an hour.

It's a really effective way to be part of the larger solution.

- What about your fleet of refrigerated trucks?

What are they, and why are they part of food rescue?

- We have six full-time drivers and six refrigerated trucks that are out every weekday handling the large-scale rescues.

So they're the ones going to the big retailers, the big distributors.

They're loading on pallets and pallets of food every trip and then delivering that right out to community as well.

So last year in total, our rescues were about 25.2 million pounds of food.

The trucks handled about 23 million pounds of that.

The rest was volunteers using I-Rescue.

- Heather, we're a nonprofit media organization.

You're a nonprofit.

Raising money is most of my job.

- Right.

Mine too.

- I was just gonna say.

- I get it.

- I know you get it.

And by the way, go on the website if you want to contribute to Table to Table.

You should do that as well.

Heather will not turn you down.

- Never.

- That being said, where does the money come from?

Corporate foundation money, where does it come from?

- We are very fortunate since 1999, since we were founded.

It's really been the generosity of our community.

Thousands of individuals have contributed to our organization.

A lot of great corporate partners, a lot of wonderful foundation partners.

We host several special events, fundraising events throughout the year that attract more people in, help them get to know us, raise funds to support what we do.

And it's really effective.

Every dollar that is contributed to us gives us the resources to rescue close to food for about 10 meals.

- Yeah, and let me also disclose that one of our underwriters in public broadcasting is one of yours at Horizon.

- Oh, yeah.

- I know they're very supportive as well.

- Great friends there.

- So before I let you go, why did you get into this work?

- What a great question.

I've been in nonprofit work for most of my career.

And I could, you know, a whole other program tracing back to kind of experiences from my childhood that just opened me up to the broader world and helped me develop, you know, just a sense of, you know, we're here to make life better for those around us.

But much of my nonprofit career has been in food security-related work.

Citymeals on Wheels in New York for a number of years.

Norwescap, you know, Mark Valli is a mutual close friend, right?

Worked for him for a number of years.

Eva's Village in Paterson.

- The best.

- And so I've just connected with so many people who are just extraordinary people who just can't quite pull together the resources or the supports or need that extra support to sort of live their best life, move towards thriving.

And so I just feel like it's a calling to do whatever any of us can to lift up our neighbors.

And then coming here and seeing the other side of things on the food side, how much, how much food goes to waste needlessly and how easy it is really to put systems in place to move that food to solve two problems at once.

Less food waste, more people getting nourishing food.

It just makes so much sense, and it gives me such a wonderful feeling to be a part of a movement that is making such a positive impact.

- You are.

You and your colleagues at Table to Table making a difference.

A terrific nonprofit.

Heather Thompson, the executive director of Table to Table.

We'll continue to highlight this issue.

We'll continue to have you back and others who are involved in the field.

We need all of us.

Thank you so much, Heather.

We appreciate it.

- Thank you, Steve.

- You got it.

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

The Adubato Center for Media Leadership.

EJI, Excellence in Medicine Awards.

A New Jersey health foundation program.

Community FoodBank of New Jersey.

Valley Bank.

PSEG Foundation.

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Garden State Initiative And by New Jersey Sharing Network.

Promotional support provided by Meadowlands Chamber.

And by New Jersey Globe.

- To watch more Think Tank with Steve Adubato, find us online and follow us on social media.

- Next, please.

Okay, we need a neutral expression.

Sir, you're smiling.

- Oh, am I?

- [Narrator] Over 1 million lives in the US have been saved by organ donations.

So when you choose to become a donor, you're doing something good, which can make you feel really good.

- Next.

(woman sighs) - [Narrator] Register today at NJSN.org.