Agriculture is imprinted in Sarah Hulick’s heart. She is a 4th-generation farmer who grew up on a small farm in upstate New York. When she was young, she helped her family raise a variety of livestock, including beef cows, goats, chickens, and pigs. Her family still grows about 40 acres of hay. In addition to helping on the farm, Sarah was also actively involved in the local community 4-H and FFA programs. So, when it was time for Sarah to head to college, pursuing a career in agriculture only seemed apropos. Sarah has a master’s degree in plant biology from Cornell University.
Following college, she moved to California, where she worked as an extension specialist for Driscoll’s berries and as a research scientist for Dole Fresh Vegetables. As an agricultural research scientist, she helped these companies find new ways to produce food safely and efficiently. She enjoyed doing research, but after 6 years, she wanted to try her hand in the agriculture technology space.
Sarah joined Full Harvest as the Grower Innovation Specialist. She works with farmers in California to help identify their food loss streams and to find innovative ways to use what would otherwise be discarded produce. Simply put, Sarah helps farmers identify and rescue food waste. Items such as discarded romaine lettuce leaves, broccoli cores, or celery tops are cut off in the field at harvest. Rather than leave these items in the field to rot, she has helped growers find uses for these “new” commodities (SKUs), which are sold as juices, purees, and powders.
Food loss on farms accounts for about 16% of our total food waste in the United States. This is equivalent to about 20 billion pounds of food. We refer to this as food loss because farmers do not intentionally grow food to have it thrown away. Food loss occurs when imperfect produce fails to meet customers’ aesthetic requirements, even though it is perfectly edible and tasty. As consumers, we have been conditioned to shop with our eyes. Much of the food loss on farms ends up left in fields to rot or dumped in landfills. The impact of this goes beyond food loss. It is also a loss of valuable resources, including water, fertilizer, fuel, labor, and time. Food waste also wreaks havoc on the environment by creating methane emissions, a leading contributor to climate change
Full Harvest is a B2B marketplace that brings food and beverage customers and farmers together to source surplus and imperfect produce. They are a young, evolving company using an e-commerce platform to connect buyers and farmers online. Full Harvest is helping to change the way our industry buys and sells produce.
Full Harvest’s customers are predominantly large juice retailers and manufacturers who can accept imperfect and ugly produce at a lower price point. This creates a win-win situation for both buyers and farmers. Full Harvest offers lower prices to buyers, making their products more affordable and potentially increasing sales and overall profits. Farmers benefit because it brings additional revenue from produce that would otherwise have been discarded. To date, Full Harvest has sold over 25 million lbs. of produce.
Food loss during the COVID-19 pandemic has been substantial, with the food service industry severely impacted. Many farmers were left with large surpluses of vegetables originally intended and grown for restaurants, hotels, and schools. Sarah and the Full Harvest team have been working closely with these farmers to help find buyers for this excess produce. Farmers are already working on tight margins, so any incremental revenue can add value to the farm.
Full Harvest is fully committed to making a difference regarding food waste outside of its office. Their employees made a personal pledge to reduce food waste in their daily lives. Sarah pledged to plan her meals before shopping, so she does not overbuy. She is also composting any leftover produce into her worm bins, which she uses in her garden.
Food loss and food waste are global problems. Sarah wants to encourage all of us to try to reduce this by accepting those ugly but edible fruits and vegetables. This not only benefits the farmer, who will increase yields and produce less waste, but also benefits our environment.
~Christine Connell