Pennsylvania lawmakers hear strategies to cut food waste and shore up food security

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Lawmakers, state agency officials and nonprofit and private-sector partners told the House Agriculture & Rural Affairs Committee on Oct. 12 that improving coordination, logistics and funding is needed to reduce food waste while increasing access to nutritious food in every county of Pennsylvania.

Committee members convened the informational meeting at the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market to hear testimony from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture, the Department of Human Services, Feeding Pennsylvania and a range of food banks, retailers and food-rescue organizations about current programs and gaps in the system.

The meeting opened with comments from Representative Eddie Day Peshinsky, chair of the House Agriculture & Rural Affairs Committee, who praised the industry tour at the market and called attention to the scale of avoidable waste in the state. Peshinsky said the presenters would explain how government, nonprofits and private businesses can “work to reduce that amount of food waste and the food insecurity and strengthen Pennsylvania food system.”

Deputy Secretary Cheryl Cook of the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture described food security as four questions — availability, affordability, safety and nutrition — and warned that abundant supply in Pennsylvania still coexists with large waste. “We live here in a place where there is so much food. It is so abundant that that much of it is wasted,” Cook said.

Officials and nonprofit leaders outlined several existing and proposed tools to address those problems. A senior official from the Department of Human Services’ Office of Income Maintenance described Summer EBT (known in testimony as “Sunbucks”), the federal program established by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023. The official said…