US media: New York City government distributed nearly 279,000 boxes of apples to schools, thousands of which were wasted
2024-08-12
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[Global Times Comprehensive Report] Thousands of boxes of apples were wasted because the amount of apples allocated to New York City schools by the government far exceeded the actual amount needed.
The New York Post reported on the 10th that representatives from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the New York State Office of Integrated Services will travel to New York State to assess the quantity and quality of agricultural products and investigate the "ridiculous waste of apples."
According to information previously disclosed by the media, as part of the cooperation between the federal government and the New York State government, the New York City Department of Education Food Service Manager signed a $5.5 million apple order with the New York City Department of Energy Office of Food and Nutrition Services (OFNS) in March this year. The cost was paid by the federal government and included nearly 279,000 boxes of apples. Due to the large quantity, schools and food distributors were "overwhelmed" by the continuous supply of "free" apples. Some apples were spoiled when they were delivered, and some were left to rot without anyone eating them. Sources estimated that 45% of the more than 5,000 boxes of apples delivered had been discarded. However, in this case, OFNS still recommended that its distributors accept these apples.
The New York Post reported that huge garbage bags filled with apples were piled up on the curb at a school in Queens.
The pictures in the report show that many boxes are filled with rotten and moldy apples, and the trash cans on the roadside of the school are also filled with apples. The school explained to the parents that this situation "happens almost every day." An insider of the school catering said that the number of apples in this huge order exceeded the school's consumption in three years, resulting in the school students only being able to eat apples every day. If the students don't want to eat, the apples will be thrown directly into the trash. "Only eating apples" also puzzled the parents of the students. Some parents wanted to know where the peaches and oranges previously supplied by the school went, and some parents were confused as to why their children would bring "extra apples" home every day.
A source said that despite warnings from distributors, administrators and chefs that the school could not handle the large amount of apples and would result in huge waste, OFNS decided to move forward with the order because officials viewed it as "free money." A food distributor pleaded with an OFNS executive: "Before we can accept more apples, we need to know what plans you have to discard these apples that are starting to rot." Buyers have also complained to farms, begging them to conduct quality checks before shipping. "We can't fill our warehouses with thousands of boxes of poor quality apples every day," said a distributor representative. Even though June was approaching the end of the school year, the report said, a distributor still received two shipments of 924 boxes each. By September, the food distributor will still have 15,544 boxes in stock. In order to distance itself from the waste caused by ordering too much, OFNS is notifying New York State and the U.S. Department of Agriculture of the apple quality issues, arguing that the waste was caused by quality problems.
The report said that many people believed that New York City should find a way to share the excess fruit with the 1.2 million hungry people in New York, "They can be packaged and given to those in need instead of being thrown away directly." However, parents learned that the apples that the children did not eat were not donated to charities or the homeless and hungry due to "cumbersome and protracted administrative procedures." Sources said that the New York City government would not donate the food because they were reluctant to admit that they had ordered too much, "They didn't want to lose face." (Lin Xi)
