Dive Brief:

• Athens, GA nonprofit Pack to Plate wants to help remove food from the waste stream while teaching kids about healthy living. The program is teaching elementary school students about healthy food they may not see every day because that food isn’t picture-perfect looking, like bruised apples and misshapen carrots.
• The program is meant to ensure that produce makes its way into children’s backpacks, to their homes and into their bellies instead of being tossed. Volunteers from Pack to Plate are teaching kids about healthy food choices, through fun activities like digging in the ground for vegetables.
• Pack to Plate saves food from grocery stores that previously would have been discarded, and uses it in the program.

Dive Insight:

One bad apple doesn’t spoil the bunch, and Pack to Plate is using those apples and irregular looking produce to help students make healthy choices about their food. With much grocery store produce going to landfills each year, and childhood obesity at high levels in the U.S., this nonprofit’s efforts are tackling multiple problems simultaneously.