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Now, Food Shift is taking on its most ambitious project yet: a kitchen facility that the organization will run in collaboration with the Alameda Point Collaborative, a housing program for the formerly homeless that happened to have an underused commercial kitchen on its premises. The new project, known as the Alameda Kitchen, aims to be a win-win for both nonprofits. It will provide Food Shift with a fully equipped kitchen that the organization can use to process large quantities of produce and other surplus food, turning all of those ugly carrots and potatoes into nutritious products that can either be given away or sold to schools, hospitals, and other meal providers. And for Alameda Point Collaborative, the kitchen will be an engine of economic development, providing hands-on job training to residents of the housing program, who will acquire skills that might allow them to go on to land jobs at restaurants or other food-related businesses.

Food Shift’s mission is an important one at a time when food insecurity and food waste are both increasingly urgent problems in the Bay Area — especially in light of the US Department of Agriculture and the US Environmental Protection Agency’s recent jointly announced goal of reducing food waste on a national level by 50 percent by 2030.