A Peachy Idea Helps a Good Cause

When the Food Bank of South Jersey discovered that one local peach farm was tossing out nearly a million undersized and blemished peaches every season, the seeds of a brilliant idea began to germinate. The Campbell's Soup Company, based in Camden, had a lot to do with bringing the idea to fruition, no pun intended.

Lydia Cipriani, Director of Strategic Marketing for the non-profit organization–which is dedicated to providing food to people in need–found that the farm was more than happy to donate the fruit.

Being perfectly edible and nutritious, but not market-worthy, the fruit was costing the grower–the Eastern Propak Farmer’s Cooperative in Glassboro, which accounts for about 4.3 million of the 163 million peaches produced annually in NJ–$80,000 a year in disposal fees.

With limited storage and refrigeration, the farm had no way to save most of the fruit from spoilage.

But Cipriani (no relation to the famous NY restaurant family) enlisted the help of Camden-based Campbell Soup Company to turn those piles of peaches into 42,000 jars of Just Peachy Salsa, the sale of which helps fund the Food Bank’s nine hunger relief programs.

Campbell’s was able to get its vendors (providers) to donate additional ingredients like tomatoes, jalapenos and cilantro, as well as jars and packaging. Campbell’s then sent the idea to the kitchens of its Pilot Plant for further development.

“We put together a cross-functional group of employees that touched every level of the process of creating a product from idea to manufacturing,” says Amanda Bauman, Manager of Community Affairs at Campbell. “Volunteers who worked on that project team really developed the whole idea from soup to nuts.”

Once the recipe was perfected, additional employees volunteered their time to fill, hand-label, and package all those jars. That took just just six days.

“We saved farmers the cost of sending (the fruit) to a landfill," says Cipriani. "We prevented them from going into the landfill and adding methane gases. We created a shelf-stable product that is low in sugar, low in salt, and only has five ingredients in it. It’s extremely healthy, and we’re making money from the sale of that product.”

The 16-ounce jars of Just Peachy salsa can be purchased at various Farmers’ Markets and select Shop-Rite stores. A complete list of retail locations is available at foodbanksj.org, where the product can be ordered directly for $2.99.

In the few weeks that the salsa has been available, 7000 jars have been sold.

“We have over 173,000 people needing emergency food assistance every year, and over a third of them are kids,” says Cipriani. “We have a problem here. We have pretty homes, we have white picket fences, we have great farms, and we have hunger. We are using Just Peachy to ask people in South Jersey to look beyond the white picket fence and recognize there is real need here.”

BTW, food waste is a widespread problem in our food systems–restaurants, markets, farms, institutions like schools or hospitals, and so forth. A group called Feeding America is studying the topic and trying to find ways to cut waste with programs or partnerships like the one that created Just Peachy.

 

SUZANNE ZIMMER LOWERY is a food writer, pastry chef and culinary instructor at a number of New Jersey cooking schools. Find out more about her at suzannelowery.com.

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