Colby College’s Joe Klaus is Working Hard to Get Food to Where it is Needed Most

I have a new hero. His name is Joe Klaus and helps to get perfectly good food that might up going to waste into the kitchens of those who need it.  Joe is the head of food services at Colby College. 

Joe has worked in food service for most of his professional life. He has the experience to see where there is a problem with the systems that grow, deliver and sell our foods.  One of the biggest problems is there does not seem to be a system to deal with the problems and that just means lots of waste when food is not sold.  He told the Morning Sentinel that 40% of produce, for a wide variety of reasons, never makes it to market. 40%! That is a huge amount of food being wasted that could be used by organizations helping those in need and loss for the growers. That is some loss on both sides of that coin.

Klaus strikes me as the conductor of an orchestra. He making these pieces come together.  Connecting farm/business  that have food that are good now, but might go to waste because they did not meet a certain standard, the organizations that could use the food to get them into the hands of those in need AND volunteers to help make it all connect.

In fact, Klaus, is being honored the Sodexo Foundation's 2013 Heroes of Everyday Life. The Sodexo Foundation works to ensure that every child in the United States, especially those most at-risk, grows up with dependable access to enough nutritious food to enable them to lead a healthy, productive life. Gotta love that! Congratulations Mr. Klaus!