At the Blog | July 14, 2025

Maximizing food recovery through convenient and dignified distribution systems

By Ciara Low

In many affordable housing communities, accessing healthy food remains a daily challenge — especially for residents with limited mobility, transportation, or time. In 2022, the Food Recovery Initiative of Joint Venture Silicon Valley launched the Affordable Housing Food Access Pilot, a program designed to augment the quantity, variety and convenience of food assistance available to residents of affordable housing, while increasing local capacity to distribute recovered food.

Developed in partnership with the Santa Clara County Department of Public Health’s CalFresh Healthy Living Program, the pilot placed commercial refrigerators at large affordable housing sites and partnered with Martha’s Kitchen, a local nonprofit, to stock them with surplus food from local grocery stores.

The project was part of a broader effort to meet the goals of California’s SB 1383, which requires certain businesses and institutions to recover surplus food for human consumption rather than disposing of it. In its role as manager of Santa Clara County’s Food Recovery Program, Joint Venture’s Food Recovery Initiative is responsible for implementing SB 1383’s food recovery regulations on behalf of the county and all its cities, working with local governments and food recovery organizations to see that there is sufficient capacity to distribute that surplus food efficiently and effectively.

Understanding the Need

The pilot grew out of findings from a 2021 metrics project led by the Food Recovery Initiative and funded by the Santa Clara County Department of Public Health. This research took a deep dive into the operations of local food recovery organizations, examining where surplus food comes from, how it’s used, how much is wasted, and why. Importantly, it also gathered insights from clients of existing food distribution sites about the barriers they faced in accessing recovered food. Nearly half of clients surveyed said they sometimes or often had difficulty accessing food distributions. Common barriers included inconvenient timing, cited as a barrier by half of survey respondents, and location, cited by just under one third of respondents.

Affordable housing sites present an opportunity to solve for these challenges by bringing recovered food directly to residents, who are more likely to struggle with high rates of food insecurity and to be confronted with mobility and transportation challenges.

However, a significant barrier to supplying food at affordable housing sites is infrastructure. Many sites lack sufficient refrigeration, limiting their ability to safely store fresh food items and provide flexible pickup times for residents.

Designing a Practical Solution

Keeping these issues at the fore, the pilot was designed to bring recovered food directly to residents while providing safe storage of fresh, surplus food at affordable housing sites and convenient and regular access for residents.

The Food Recovery Initiative launched three-month pilot programs at four large housing sites, each with over 150 residents. The Initiative placed commercial refrigerators at each site and partnered with Martha’s Kitchen to stock them with fresh, recovered food two to three times a week. Housing staff facilitated access for residents during scheduled distribution hours, including hours after 5pm for those working during the day. Some of the sites were also able to offer food to residents on an as-needed basis, increasing access and convenience.

Designed with limited staffing in mind, the pilot prioritized ease of implementation for housing staff, helping ensure the model could be realistically managed and sustained at scale.

In addition, the pilot deployed a novel communication tool designed to facilitate asynchronous feedback between the food recovery organization and housing staff, helping to reduce food waste and ensure that food offerings aligned with resident preferences.

Results: Impact Beyond Food

Over the course of the pilots, Martha’s Kitchen delivered an average of 653 pounds weekly to each site. On average, residents collected food 52 times per week at each site.

Resident feedback was positive. Surveys showed 95% of residents enjoyed the experience, 93% found it convenient, and 82% said they ate more fresh fruits and vegetables as a result of the program. Seventy-three percent said they worried less about having enough food to eat. Residents shared how the program helped them feed their families, eat healthier, and even experiment with new recipes. One resident said, “It’s so great to have whole food options instead of foods with preservatives.”

Staff feedback echoed this success. One housing staff member said, “This really helps the residents who are walker-bound,” while another said the program provided vital support to residents facing EBT or transportation challenges.

One unexpected outcome was an increased sense of community fostered by the program. Staff members from all three sites commented on the program’s positive community-building effects, while 87% of residents surveyed reported that the program helped them to feel more connected to their neighbors.

A Sustainable and Scalable Model

Following the success of the initial pilot, each of the four housing sites chose to continue the program, which has been in operation at three of the sites since July 2023 and at the fourth since July 2024. The Initiative compiled a detailed implementation guide based on pilot learnings, which has been used to adapt the program to community spaces in neighboring counties, and to expand to additional housing sites in Santa Clara County. The guide outlines the implementation process in four phases: 1. Laying the Groundwork; 2. Food Recovery Partner and Program Site Selection; 3. Program Initiation; and 4. Program Sustainability. Each section details lessons learned from the pilot sites and provides considerations and recommendations for those interested in replicating the full program or certain aspects of it.

The guide is designed to be used by any coordinating bodies working to increase recovered food distribution. These might include agencies tasked with expanding food recovery capacity in their jurisdictions in response to new state or local laws, food banks, and food recovery organizations interested in expanding their reach and distributing food at times and locations easier for their clients to access, governments working to reduce their climate impact or to increase food access in their communities, and affordable housing providers looking to provide more resources for their tenants. It can be used to start a new program from scratch or to improve the food safety and/or accessibility of existing programming.

The Food Recovery Initiative is happy to share more about its work and findings. To learn more or to download the full implementation guide, please visit the Food Recovery Initiative page on Joint Venture’s website.

About the Author

Ciara Low, Associate Director of the Food Recovery Initiative at Joint Venture Silicon Valley, manages the implementation of SB 1383’s edible food recovery requirements in Santa Clara County. Her career has focused on building resilient regional food systems, strengthening food security, and reducing waste in the food sector. Before coming to Joint Venture, Ciara founded UpRoot Colorado, a nonprofit working to increase nutrition security and reduce on-farm surplus across Colorado.