About Us
Fresh Connect Central, an agri-food distributor operated by Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana was launched in 2017 as a part of Feeding America’s strategy to close the meal gap and support the health and wellness of those facing food insecurity.
Millions of people in our country struggle with hunger.
At the same time, 20 billion pounds of fresh produce never make it off the farm, and are either plowed under or dumped in landfills. Fresh Connect Central is committed to rescuing as much farm-fresh food as possible and redirecting it to food banks. We distributed more than 70 million pounds of food in 2022 and today, we serve nearly half of the entire Feeding America network of 199 food banks.
Fresh Connect Central’s goals are to:
Increase the quality, quantity, and variety of fresh nutritious products available to food insecure neighbors.
Reduce costs associated with sourcing and acquiring food.
Improve efficiency and planning among food bank nationwide.
We do this by:
Building relationships with growers, brokers, wholesalers, state associations and other Feeding America co-operatives.
Understanding and aggregating total demand to negotiate better pricing.
Centrally planning, negotiating, and purchasing pre-market produce.
Capitalizing on zero-cost donations.
Converting truckload quantities of single varieties into mixed loads that are easier for food banks to handle and distribute.