Samaritan House recovers food to provide 1,300 meals daily in San Mateo County

“We’re all thankful we are able to recover this food, and it’s a win-win all around, being able to feed people and be able to be good to our environment,” she said. 

Once collected, the nonprofit uses the food for its bevy of basic need-related programs, including its community market, food pantry and mobile meals. 

Samaritan House has partnered with the San Mateo County Office of Sustainability on edible food recovery since 2022, helping grocery stores over a certain size fulfill state requirements to donate a percentage of unused food. 

In reality, however, the nonprofit has been recovering unused food in a more informal capacity nearly since its inception, Sandoval said, with volunteers doing small-scale pickups in their cars. 

“It kind of just evolved throughout the years,” she said. “We’ve been doing this for quite some time, before it did become the law. Now it’s at a large scale.” 

Food Rescue Coordinator Luis Guerridos makes regular trips to grocers like Costco to collect unused, good food each day, as well as unopened toiletries and household products. From there, he brings the haul back to Samaritan House, where it’s sorted for use. 

“I’ve been here working for Samaritan House for about 20 years,” he said. “I try to collect all the food from the Costcos. And we have a lot of places — Costco, and Piazza’s, and Safeway and Trader Joe’s.” 

Seeing the amount of food that would otherwise go to waste cements the mission of the edible food recovery program, Guerridos said. 

“You definitely feel bad,” he said. “[But] this is the plan, to rescue all the food.” 

The program benefits both the environment, reducing waste and lowering the county’s overall carbon footprint, but also provides direct assistance to neighbors in need, Sandoval said. Samaritan House was able to alleviate $3,000 worth of food cost per family with its food programs last year, she said. 

“[We’re] able to offset some of these food costs so our clients could use funding otherwise for the rent, or whatever else they need,” she said. 

Particularly given federal cuts to basic needs programs like the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, as well as food banks, nonprofit-run opportunities to provide low-income community members with healthy food are becoming more important than ever, Sandoval said. 

“Food is what nourishes our neighbors,” she said. “We’re really proud, not only with our staff but with our large number of volunteers, that we’re able to provide all these meals to the community.”