Each day, MFB volunteers go to local grocery stores – HyVee and Kroger – to gather perishable food. That food includes artisan bread from the bakeries at these stores. Food pantries shared with us that these loaves of bread are often passed over by their clients because they can’t or may not want to slice them.
Sometimes a small change makes a big difference – especially to those served by Midwest Food Bank. Recently a few individuals donated financially so Midwest Food Bank could purchase machines that can slice crusty, artisan bread.
MFB volunteers not only gather the loaves of bread but then slice it, put it in bags and box it. In the past, this high quality bread has been hard to distribute but now that it is sliced, the food pantries say it has made all the difference.
In 2019, MFB gathered about 126,000 pounds of artisan bread valued at $450,000. Anyway you slice it, that’s a lot of bread.
