Please remember these are expected truckloads coming to the OFB warehouse this week. Reminder: It will take a few days for items to appear in inventory depending on when the loads are received into the warehouse. Food is first received into the Statewide warehouse and then must be transformed/moved to the Metro and West warehouses, including a delivery to West.  These are estimates on what you can likely expect to see in the coming days/weeks, not when you will see them. Please reach out to the Metro Team (MWCS@oregonfoodbank.org) with questions, not the Operations Team. Thank you!

TEFAP Update - April-September

Some exciting updates on Bonus Offerings that will be arriving in that time period.

Dairy! We are getting cheese, fresh fluid milk and butter! For USDA Bonus offerings we (OFB and the State of Oregon) are given a specific window of time in which we have to land all the offered loads. Fortunately, for the dairy items there was a seven month window of time. We’ve strategically brought the fluid milk in during the Spring and Early summer to avoid cooler capacity in the peak heat and produce months. Not shown in this report will be additional fresh fluid milk and cheese in the Fall and early Winter. 

USDA produce will include Fresh Tomatoes again this year. Our hope is that these can remain in ambient storage for everyone and be distributed before  ambient temps get too high in July. However, as I sit here it's 75 degrees out in early April, so we’ll see! We haven’t seen the offer for USDA Stone fruit (peaches, nectarines, plums) but we may still receive it this summer.

But what about shelf-stable products, you say? Sadly, we continue to see all pasta (Elbow and spaghetti) loads being canceled by the USDA due to vendor constraints. The good news is that the Bonus offerings for USDA also included many varieties of dried beans and peas! Unfortunately the window of time in which we had to land these offerings was only 4 months. We pulled up a lot of old data from 2019, as well as current food flow information and ordered a variety of dried legumes that we think is appropriate for our Network in this time of low shelf stable foods. We look forward to discussing different tips and strategies to manage the high level of dried legumes, and avoid bottlenecks in distribution.

See attachment below for full TEFAP anticipated loads. 

Anticipated Produce Loads - please see key below for interpretation

Greetings friends! 

Spring has sprung and with it we are quickly seeing shoulder season turn to summer in parts of California. It’s too early for this transition but here we are. We’ve had a rough couple of days at OFB 33rd with California loads. The citrus load arrived Friday with quality issues. Our Volunteer team hopped in fast and sorted all 18 pallets (40,000 lbs) to ensure that we are sending out good fruit. A thousand thanks to all the staff and volunteers who helped on this one. 

We got dinger again this morning when today’s strawberry load came in absolutely terrible. I think the appropriate term to describe the load is leaky sticky mold mess. It’s always a bad deal when we get loads we cannot distribute. Not only is it a strain on our labor, a terrible use of fuel and resources but it also means we don’t have the volume we expect to serve the network. We’ve had a really good run and shoulder season is always a tricky time for quality. 

We’ll keep trying to source variety out of California and will have more to offer soon. In the land of good news, today’s cauliflower load arrived in great condition and will start shipping out across the network tomorrow. This week’s photos are from our Receiving team and show the quality of the produce at the time of receiving. 

Be well and bon appetit! Your friend, produce kim