Corporations ‘fork it over’

Instead of going to landfills, ‘mistake food’ makes its way to area’s working poor

By Kelly Moyer-Wade

The Gresham Outlook, Nov 21, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009 (2 Reader comments)

Carole Archer / The Outlook

Rick Teeny, head of Teeny Foods, surveys a pallet of frozen pizzas ready for donation on Tuesday, Nov. 21. Teeny donates thousands of pounds of food to Birch Community Services, which in turn distributes corporate donations to nearly 10,000 people each year.

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’Tis the season for giving, and several East County businesses are getting into the spirit, doling out millions of dollars worth of food and drinks for the less fortunate.

“It’s a waste to throw away good food when you can feed people who need it,” says Ken Kuhn, owner of the Gresham Flying Pie Pizzeria shop.

Kuhn donates all of his shop’s “mistake” pizzas to the Frontier Mission in Troutdale, and says the community service group has been a good partner over the years.

“They come in automatically once a week to see if we have anything,” Kuhn says of Frontier Mission volunteers. “They’re great about picking it up, and so I’ve been loyal to them.”

Other business owners who donate “mistake” products (food that is perfectly good to eat, but doesn’t meet stringent manufacturing guidelines) agree with Kuhn. They say a community organization’s willingness to pick-up the food makes it easier for them to give.

“For me, it’s important that, when we have donations, and need to get it out of the freezer to make room, that they come and get it right away,” says Rick Teeny, head of Teeny Foods, an East County company that manufactures products such as pizza and breadsticks and donates thousands of pounds of “mistake” products each year.

That’s one reason Teeny prefers to donate to Birch Community Services.

“As soon as we call (Birch Community Services) and tell them we have a donation, they come and pick it up,” Teeny says.

Birch Community Services is a nonprofit Gresham organization that collects food, clothing and other products from dozens of companies in the Portland-metro area and – through partnerships with about 50 other nonprofit organizations – helps feed nearly 10,000 of Oregon’s “working poor.”

Its founder, Barry Birch, says that in the 14 years since Birch Community Services first began (with a couple bags of donated bread served off Birch’s front porch near Mount Tabor) he has had no trouble collecting donations from Portland-area companies.

“We’ve never been in the position where we have to fight for donations,” Birch says.

The donations vary day to day, and Birch takes calls all day from various companies to donate things like 100 frozen turkeys, 440 whole chickens, a couple pallets of Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, or 2,200 containers of olive oil.

“A truck tipped over, apparently, and Holman Transfer called us to see if we wanted the olive oil,” Birch says. “That’s about $50,000 worth of olive oil!”

Some of the organization’s largest contributors include Albertson’s and Henningsen Cold Storage, which provides cold storage to major companies like Nestle and often has surplus items they want to donate.

“Last year, Henningsen donated enough turkeys for all 650 of our families,” Birch says.

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