The coronavirus may have stopped people from eating out, staying in hotels and flying last week, but the world’s food supply continued to barrel along on its usual path.
In Central New York, perishables like broccoli, lettuce and liquid eggs landed in food supply warehouses and restaurants with no chefs and no customers.
The grateful recipient: food pantries.
Peter Ricardo, product donations manager for the Food Bank of Central New York, answered calls last week from Syracuse Banana, and Mento Produce – the wholesale suppliers that suddenly no longer needed to fill restaurant kitchens.
More calls came in from restaurants and hotels that already had too much food in refrigeration: Chili’s, Bonefish Grill, Comfort Suites and the East Syracuse Hilton.
“Restaurants normally have a pretty good grip on their flow of goods, which was totally blown out of the water,” Ricardo said.
Delaware North donated 250 boxed breakfasts and 250 lunches that were no longer needed on a charter flight.
“That was a unique and wonderful offer because it was pre-packed meals,” he said. “That came in handy.”
The Food Bank of Central New York supplies food to pantries in 11 counties. In the interest of safety, the agency has changed the way it does business.
Instead of sending boxes of bulk cereal and rice and vegetables for pantry workers to shelve, workers are packing an assortment of goods into individual boxes for pantry workers to hand out. That limits contact between pantry workers and clients to handling one box rather than dozens of items like a market.
The Food Bank supplies about 33,500 meals per day.
It is too soon to tell how those numbers will change as more and more workers lose their jobs and turn to a pantry for food, Ricardo said.
“Our numbers are certainly not going down,” he said.
If you have a large volume of food to donate, call Ricardo at 315-437-1899, extension 233, or email him at pricardo@foodbankcny.org
The Food Bank also needs volunteers to help pack boxes at the warehouse, 7066 Interstate Island Road, Syracuse.
To volunteer for the Food Bank, register at FoodBankCNY.volunteerhub.com
Does your organization need help? Let us know what you need and we will add you to our list.
Volunteer CNY is coordinating volunteers. If you want to know how you can help fill a need, sign up at volunteercny.org or call 315-428-2229.
Find out how and where to give blood for the Red Cross.
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Contact Michelle Breidenbach: mbreidenbach@syracuse.com | 315-470-3186.
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