PUBLIC TESTIMONY
Testimony by Matt Jozwiak, Founder of Rethink Food
3:17:00
·
105 sec
Matt Jozwiak, Founder of Rethink Food, testifies about food waste in the NYC shelter system, emphasizing its fiscal impact and proposing solutions. He supports the proposed legislation for measuring food consumption in shelters.
- Estimates $200 million worth of food waste in the shelter system annually
- Highlights the paradox of food waste in shelters while people rely on soup kitchens and food pantries
- Advocates for preparing better quality food to reduce waste and improve services
Matt Jozwiak
3:17:00
Thank you.
3:17:00
And I wanna thank the, council members today for bringing this together and especially council member Juan and council member Brewer, for your, relentless attention to the food qualities in, our shelter system.
3:17:14
I do want to thank the administration because in the last 7 years that I've been running, Rethink Food, I've seen more progress in the last 2, than I have in the entire time that I've been making emergency food.
3:17:26
We have been able to work with a lot of the, smaller shelters and have a great relationship with health and hospitals, but one critical lesson that we've uncovered over the last 6 months is the immense amount of food waste in the shelter system.
3:17:38
While food waste is certainly a sustainable issue sustainability issue, it is also a fiscal issue, a matter of fiscal responsibility.
3:17:46
We've identified that there could be, around $200,000,000 worth of food waste in the system as of today.
3:17:54
$200,000,000 is a number that, is equal to the entire state city budget of Albany.
3:18:01
Could employ every firefighter, every worker, everybody in that city.
3:18:06
And this problem extends past this issue because of the the fact that folks need to eat.
3:18:12
They need to go they end up going to soup kitchens and pantries, which tens, twenties, unmeasurable amounts of money, 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 of dollars are raised by philanthropies every year to do the same job that the city's supposed to be doing.
3:18:24
We're throwing away the food for the, the taxpayer's time, and then people are walking around the corner, and and nonprofits are having to dig money out of their pockets to make meals for these communities.
3:18:34
It's a really simple solution.
3:18:36
We just need to prepare better food, And you can't fix what you don't measure, which is why Rethink Food is strongly in favor of this law.
3:18:44
Thank you.
