As food banks struggle to meet demand, ‘wasted’ food is filling the gap — for now

IT’S A SUNNY TUESDAY MORNING when a crowd gathers at the corner of University and Ninth Streets in Berkeley. Armed with reusable grocery bags and folding shopping carts, they wait for the food pantry to open at Berkeley Food Network, one of the largest food aid organizations in Alameda County.

Inside the building, the line snakes around a check-in station to a cordoned-off area designed to give the experience of shopping in a small market. Heaps of corn and cantaloupes fill cardboard boxes in a central produce section. Plastic bags full of freshly picked vegetables and herbs sit on countertops tended by volunteers. In one corner, bright lights glow from inside an empty commercial refrigerator — a reminder of the crisis that food banks and other feeding organizations now face.