Food safety, power, and produce gleaning in California: insights from community food recovery networks

Produce “gleaning,” also termed recovery or rescue, refers to the harvesting of crops that producers cannot or choose not to sell. This practice is centuries old, but has gained renewed relevance as a strategy to distribute fresh produce to communities in need, reduce food waste, and foster civic engagement. As food recovery operations expand, key questions have arisen about how best to maintain food safety while sustaining the broader missions of these organizations. To examine this issue, we conducted seven in-person focus groups in 2019 across California with staff of gleaning organizations, food banks, and food pantries. Participants emphasized that food safety is already embedded into their daily operations and regarded as central for their work. They described practices such as volunteer training, traceability systems, and operational controls that ensure safe handling of gleaned produce and align with the size, capacity, and volunteer-driven nature of their operations. At the same time, participants identified persistent challenges, including irregular donation timing, volunteer turnover, lack of cold storage, and resource constraints. Food banks in particular noted difficulties associated with management of large-scale donations and receiving low-quality produce from retailers, often tied to state recycling mandates and economic incentives that push costs and risks downstream. Both gleaners and food banks stressed that while food safety is of utmost importance, imposing additional regulatory requirements on small, volunteer-driven organizations would not mitigate risks and could even jeopardize their survival. Instead, participants highlighted the need for training that fits their operational realities, closer engagement with regulators, and policies that ensure accountability among large institutional donors. These findings contribute to the literature by reframing food safety as a question of scale-appropriate governance and by showing that gleaning organizations operate within structural power asymmetries, playing roles that extend beyond redistribution to community engagement and food justice. Our findings suggest that gleaning organizations already address food safety through embedded practices, and that the greater challenges stem from systemic inequities in the food system rather than from negligence. In this context, gleaning is part of a grassroots social movement that advances food justice, reduces waste, and strengthens civic participation.