Food Rescue Act
Sponsored By: Representative Rep. Torres, Ritchie [D-NY-15]
Introduced
Summary
A national food rescue system would connect surplus food from farms, retailers, manufacturers, and distributors to emergency feeding groups and food-insecure communities. The U.S. Department of Agriculture would run the system through the Food and Nutrition Service and set up a competitive grant program to fund recovery, logistics, technology, storage, and operations.
Show full summary
- Families and food-insecure communities: Could see more regular access to rescued food through coordinated recovery, cold-chain transport, aggregation sites, and last-mile delivery to emergency feeding organizations.
- Food rescue organizations and food banks: Could win competitive grants for gleaning, aggregation, transportation, cold storage, processing, repackaging, technology, personnel, and reasonable administrative costs.
- Producers, retailers, logistics partners, and governments: Would be encouraged to form partnerships and use supported technology and technical assistance to identify, track, and redirect surplus food. The Secretary must coordinate this system with existing Emergency Food Assistance Act programs and the Farm-to-Food Bank Project.
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Bill Overview
Analyzed Economic Effects
3 provisions identified: 2 benefits, 1 costs, 0 mixed.
Competitive grants for food rescue
If enacted, the bill would create a competitive grant program to fund food rescue organizations and their partners. Grants could pay for food recovery work (including gleaning), transport and cold‑chain delivery, storage or repackaging infrastructure, matching technology, staff and equipment, and certain administrative costs. Applicants would need to describe their project, list partners, give a budget and timeline, and estimate pounds of food recovered and households served. The bill would authorize whatever sums are necessary to run the program, but it does not set a dollar total now.
National food rescue coordination system
If enacted, the bill would require the Secretary of Agriculture to set up a national food rescue system run by the Food and Nutrition Service. The system would find surplus food from farms, retailers, manufacturers, and distributors and move it to food banks and emergency feeding groups. It would support aggregation sites, trucks, cold storage, last‑mile delivery, and data systems to track and match food. The Secretary would also provide technical help and coordinate this system with existing farm‑to‑food bank and emergency food programs.
Change which USDA funds count
If enacted, the bill would amend the Emergency Food Assistance Act to say that funds appropriated under section 216 do not count for a related program rule in section 203D(b). This would narrow which USDA appropriations are treated as available for that program. The change would take effect when the bill is enacted.
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Sponsors & CoSponsors
Sponsor
Rep. Torres, Ritchie [D-NY-15]
NY • D
Cosponsors
There are no cosponsors for this bill.
Roll Call Votes
No roll call votes available for this bill.
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