Meet Our Sparcs Partners: Goodale Farms

In February, 2018, Goodale Farms joined our SparCs to Farm program. Each week the farm receives fifteen 900 pound bins filled with SparCs (scarps spelled backwards). SparCs are generated from our Fresh Cuts facility, where we process 1.5 million pounds of fruits and vegetables a week into a variety of shapes and sizes. The leftover peelings, trimmings, tops and bottoms are captured and put to variety of uses. Because we process such a diverse array of fruits and vegetables each day, our SparCs bins make for a nutrient packed supplement to any animal’s traditional diet.

Goodale Farms is one of several farms participating in our SparCs to Farm program. Since the program’s inception, we have grown the number of farm partners significantly. On a weekly basis we send upwards of 30,000 pounds of fruit and vegetable SparCs to farms across the tristate area, making very happy pigs, cows, chickens, and goats in the process.

Feeding leftover food product to animals is not a novel concept. Farmers have been doing this for centuries. Not only is this old-age practice better for the animal’s digestion, it turns a waste product into a valuable resource, reducing costs for the farmer and benefitting their bottom line. According to ReFed, a non-profit organization that takes a data-driven approach to reduce food waste, feeding animals food that would otherwise be wasted has the potential to divert 49,000 tons of food waste from landfill per year and prevent 34,000 tons of GHG emissions from entering the atmosphere.

Baldor’s SparCs to Farm program is a key part of our effort to address food waste both internally and on a wider scale. It’s a program that is both simple and scalable. If you are interested in becoming a SparCs partner, please reach out by emailing swelch@baldorfood.com. We are excited to see where else this program takes us. The possibilities and opportunities abound.