What is in this toolkit?

This toolkit is the ‘How To’ resource for setting up gleaning in your area. You and your community group will be responsible for reaching out to farmers, recruiting and coordinating volunteers, sourcing equipment and organising the redistribution of the food that you glean.

Once these connections are made with farmers, the gleaning opportunities should present themselves year after year, providing the farmer with the means to redistribute their surplus and the community a chance to directly connect to their food system, as well redirecting food to those in need.

It’s useful to gain a basic understanding of why and how food gets wasted on the farm before you start contacting farmers. Having this knowledge will help you identify which farms in your area are likely to have surplus and at which times of year. It will also give the farmer reassurance that they are dealing with someone who understands the issues.

Types and causes of farm level food waste

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Where and when does waste occur?

Finding Farmers & Growers

Here we provide tips on how to find and contact farmers and growers in your region.

You may find it useful to compile a list or database of farming contacts. If you choose to do this, it is important to make sure you are aware of the regulations regarding data protection (known as GDPR).

There many types and sizes of horticultural farms. Some will be growing one or two types of crops on a very large scale, some market gardens will grow a variety of crops at a much small scale. There are opportunities for gleaning on all and the types of farms.

Where to look:

At Foodrise, we store all of our farm information, colour coded based on how likely a lead they are, in an excel sheet. You can find an example in our ‘how to stay organised‘ chapter.

Contacting farmers

Food waste can be a sensitive topic for farmers and growers – after all, it affects their livelihood – so please be considerate in your conversations and communications with them. Gleaning is often a new and unfamiliar concept for farmers (it is not ‘cleaning’…). The language you use and the questions you ask are therefore key to your chances of bringing them on board.

Talking to the right person

Calling farmers directly will yield the most chance of success. Generally speaking, most farmers will only occasionally access emails.

Try to get through to the farmer themselves, as they are the ones who know about the surplus and can let you onto the farm.

For larger farms, there may be several people, teams or departments you can speak to. Some useful departments to speak to might be: Production, CSR (corporate social responsibility), Marketing.

Saying the right things…

There is no single, correct approach when talking to farmers, but the key point to remember is that not all farmers have the same interpretation of food waste; and certain words, phrases or approaches can mean different things to different farmers.

Farmers are busy people, don’t be disheartened if they don’t answer, keep trying!

Key words

Unharvested	Rejected	Surplus
Downgraded	Out graded	Left over
Glut	Unsold	Unsellable

Representing The Gleaning Network

When reaching out to farmers, you will representing yourself, or your community group. However, you may want to mention that you are part of ‘The Gleaning Network’ and explain that you are part of a national network of groups who work with farmers to harvest and redistribute surplus.

Tips for securing a glean

Scheduling a gleaning day is dependent upon:

1. Your availability
2. The availability of the farm
3. The time frame in which the crop is able to be harvested before it turns

Key information to ask the grower is ‘What is the latest date we can pick this crop?’

Some food for thought…

Waste occurs at different stages of the process

Explain to the farmer that you want to know about any surplus crops, not only those left in the field (e.g the packing and grading shed)

A little goes a long way

Farmers think in big quantities. Let them know that even a few hundred kilograms of produce may be very valuable to the charities who receive your donations of gleaned fruit and vegetables.

For market gardens, who might have small amounts of regular surplus, there could be opportunities for a short weekly glean after they have harvested for their box schemes.

Gleaners can pick and choose

Labour is one of the most expensive input costs for farmers, so they are used to making decisions based on economics and efficiency.

For example, an apple farmer might estimate that only 30 per cent of the fruit in one particular orchard is good enough to sell – and therefore not cost efficient to pay their labourers to work in that orchard.

Gleaners volunteer their time and are not constrained by cosmetic standards or picking speed.

Volunteers are the heart of gleaning.

They are the people who will devote their time and energy to saving this food, and who will share your aims and values

Managing Volunteers

Gleaning days are a great way for volunteers to connect with each other and learn about our food system. We have found that the day is more often than not about community and socialising rather than saving as much food as possible, so it’s important to keep the day light-hearted and fun.

Volunteers can easily get overwhelmed with how much surplus there is to glean, so a key part of your role is managing expectations about how much they are able to harvest. You don’t want your volunteers to feel like they are at agricultural boot camp!

Volunteer coordination calls on the art of good communication skills and the ability to delegate appropriate tasks for the ability and needs of the volunteers.

We encourage you to invite a diverse group of people to your gleaning days. Your groups are likely to have a range of abilities and interests so always be conscious of this. It’s important volunteers know how to carry out the task they have been assigned safely, and feel comfortable with asking lots of questions.

Recruiting volunteers

If you are not already involved with your community and don’t have access to volunteer networks, below are some tips and ideas for finding your glean team

Volunteer Numbers

Calculating how many volunteers you need for the job

We recommend that you consider:

Farmers can often provide an estimate for the speed at which the produce can be gleaned. They can also provide useful information, such as whether the available crop is all in one field and spaced closely together.

The amount you harvest also depends on the type of volunteers that come, as well as other factors such as the weather.

Callouts to volunteers

Reaching out to volunteers

Once you have a list of potential volunteers on a mailing list and glean day on the horizon, the best way to recruit is through an email mail out. At Foodrise, we create light hearted call-outs, using lots of food-related puns but it’s up to you how you think you’ll best capture your volunteers interest

You may also want to promote your event outside of your mailing contacts. Key spaces for advertising your gleaning day include:

• Social media
  • Create an advert which you can share on Facebook, X and Instagram as well as posting in relevant Facebook groups

• Local newspapers, radio and village/school newsletters
• Relevant Whatsapp groups
• Other community group mailing lists

Here’s an example of a volunteer call out from a Foodrise Gleaning Day

Transport logistics: getting your volunteers to the farm

Part of your coordination role is figuring out the easiest and most cost efficient way to get your volunteers to the farm.

Check the nearest bus and train stops to the farm and the rough prices from the nearest towns and cities where you expect your volunteers to be coming from. It’s not necessary to organise group transport unless it is a whole group, i.e. a school group, but it’s nice to be able to provide some useful information.

Often, those who are able to drive are essential to the smooth running of your gleaning day. If you are worried that there is not an easy way to get the farm via public transport, you may want to email the drivers on your mailing list first to see if they are able to offer lifts.

Matching drivers with non-drivers:

• Depending on how many volunteers you need, you may just want to email clusters of volunteers living either close to the farm, or close to the drivers.
• Ask the drivers to pick up groups of volunteers from the nearest bus/train

Leading up to the glean

Before the event itself, send out an email to your confirmed volunteers a few days before with the following information:

• When and where to arrive
• What to wear
• Your contact number
• To bring lunch and water

You will need the following information:

• A confirmed contact number
  • This may be different to the number they gave you on the sign up form
• How they will be arriving
  • Train/bus/car/ride share (and with who)

Extra info

• Take lots of photos (or assign a volunteer to be a photographer) as these photos will be key for publicising future events. Make sure you get consent from your volunteers for taking and using photos of them.
• It is good practice to ask the volunteers to fill out a feedback form. This will be vital for evaluating how the day went and essential for future reporting or upcoming funding opportunities. Here is an example questionnaire. More people are likely to fill this out if you bring paper copies on the day/ or pass around a tablet.
• After the gleaning day, send a thank you email out to the volunteers with a link to the photos. Other information you may want to add is the number of portions saved

Beneficiaries

Once you have a farm to glean from and volunteers to harvest the produce, you will need an organisation who are able to take some or all of the produce.

Gleaned food donations are very unusual – one type of produce, usually perishable, delivered in often quite large quantities.

FareShare

FareShare are a great redistribution charity who have large enough facilities to pick up and store large quantities of food.

Other beneficiaries

Other redistribution charities like The Felix Project and City Harvest are also key allies of the gleaning project.

Reach out to smaller charities close to the farm (homeless shelters, community kitchens etc.). See if they’d like to attend the glean and take back some of the produce with them, or if any volunteers could drop off the surplus.

Some criteria to consider:

• Does the charity have space to store the produce (especially cold storage for more perishable goods)?
• Can the charity redistribute the produce before the quality is too compromised?
• Are they happy to take one type of food?
• Are they able to pick up the gleaned produce, or be open to receive the produce at the end of the day of the glean?
  • If they cannot receive or collect the food until the next day, check with the farmer to see if they mind if it is stored over night at the farm

Transport Logistics

Logistics for Transporting Produce to Beneficiaries

Vehicles, drivers and crates

In an ideal world, the beneficiary organisation to whom you are donating the gleaned food will have their own (1) van, (2) driver and (3) crates and will be able to the (4) leave the van onsite all day to be loaded. This is often not the case, so here are some possible options:

1. Borrow or rent a van:
   • Always check if companies have a charity rate.
   • Ask community groups if you can borrow their transport
   • Check with volunteer drivers (they may have large cars!)
2. Find a driver:
   • The charity may have a van but not driver, in this case you may be able to register a volunteer as a driver (always check individual insurance policies).
   • If you are renting/borrowing a van, you or a volunteer will need to be registered as a driver (reach out to the volunteers to ask if someone is willing to drive)
3. Borrow crates:
   • Ask the farmer, or the organisation you are donating to, if you can borrow crates
4. If the beneficiary is sending a vehicle & driver, but they cannot stay on site for the duration of the glean, make sure the driver can arrive with enough time to get the van loaded at the end of the day.

Other Avenues for Surplus

Social enterprises and community interest companies

It’s good to prioritise donating gleaned produce to charity, however, it might be that there are social enterprises in your area who are using surplus produce. Always check with the farmer first to make sure they are OK with this option. Some of the organisations we have worked with in the past include:

Events!

Organising a community event is a great way to use the surplus. Foodrise has run several ‘Disco Chops’, a fun way to get the produce out into the community via communal cooking. We have a toolkit for running such events here. Some gleaning groups use the produce to cook a pot of something on a gleaning day.

What to bring on a glean

Check with the farmer to see what equipment they recommend for harvesting and storing the produce and what you can borrow from them directly.

You may also want to bring your beneficiaries into this, as ideally, you should be able to use containers or pallets owned by the charities you are donating the produce to. 

Here are some items you may need for your glean:

Harvesting equipment

Storage equipment

Head to Chapter 11 for the printable health and safety checklist

Getting Started

In order to be part of the Gleaning Network, we ask for your group to have the following things in place:

Example docs

On the day

Start your day with a safety briefing with your volunteers. Demonstrate how to correctly and safely harvest the produce as any improper techniques can be unsafe and/or lead to injury. Check with the farmer if there are any areas of the land that need to be avoided.

Dangerous tools, heavy lifting & ladders

You may be surrounded by various pieces of potentially dangerous equipment when in the fields harvesting the produce. Make sure to highlight the potential hazards on the farm.

There is likely to be a lot of lifting of crates throughout the day. Demonstrate the correct way to carry heavy equipment in your health and safety briefing.

Some produce (like top fruit) may require the use of ladders. Make sure there is always one person standing at the base of the ladder and that the feet of the ladder are on secure ground.

Useful documents

Appropriate clothing

Advise volunteers to wear appropriate clothing for the weather and terrain

Local hospitals

In case somebody is taken seriously ill or injured, keep note of the local hospital

Health and Safety of Knives

Some produce may require knives to harvest – for instance, cabbages and cauliflower. Children under 18 will not be able to attend a gleaning day where harvesting knives will be used. All volunteers using harvesting knives are required to wear cut-resistant safety gloves.

Before the Gleaning day

• Check you have enough safety gloves for all volunteers, with some spares. 
• Sharpen any dull knives 

Safety Gloves

Volunteers without gloves cannot use knives—instead, allocate them jobs like putting the vegetables into crates and moving the crates to the vehicle. 

Health & Safety Knife Talk

Key points you need to communicate:

1. Keep the blade down when not in use
2. Put protective sheath back on when walking on slippery or muddy surfaces
3. Keep three metres away from your neighbour
4. Never raise the knife, or swing it around.
5. Cut away from yourself
6. Never raise the blade above your head
7. When knives are not being used, keep inside a clearly identified sturdy container
8. Do not put knives down anywhere where they cannot be clearly seen and might be stepped on, or lost in the field.
9. Place knives back in their protective sheaths and box the end of the day.

Between farms, volunteers and beneficiaries, you will have a lot of information to collate about your local area. It can easily get a little overwhelming if you haven’t got processes in place. Luckily, Foodrise has been doing this for a number of years. Here are some ideas based on what has worked for us:

A database of farmers & beneficiaries

Creating a spreadsheet is a great way to keep up to date with your farmer contacts. If there are multiple gleaners reaching out to farmers, a google sheet is great for live documents. Below is an example of how we have organised things:

It’s also good to create a database of the beneficiaries in your local area. Key information to gather is:

Volunteer management

Creating a sign up form is the easiest way to recruit volunteers. There are multiple free platforms you can use. Google form is very straight forward. The key information you want to have from your volunteers is:

Recording gleans

Keeping track of your gleaning data is helpful for your group but also if you want to apply for funding.

Setting up an online form is the most straight forward way of capturing this information that then is captured in a central database. This is the information you will need:

A helpful printable checklist for your gleaning days. More detailed information can be found in Chapter 7.

Before the Gleaning Day

Equipment for all gleaning days

Knives (if being used for this gleaning day)

Essential information

During the Gleaning Day

Introduction: ALL volunteers have received a talk covering:

Before gleaning begins

When gleaning is underway

At the end of the day

After the gleaning day

Important information to complete