How Pesia's Kitchen Turned Food Waste Into a Million Meals — Gideon Ben Ami

Retirement wasn't his style. So Gideon Ben Ami did something few expected: he turned corporate and hotel food surplus into a million meals, at around 32 cents each.  That's the idea behind Pesia's Kitchen. The ugly fruit nobody wanted, the hotel banquet leftovers, the corporate kitchen surplus — rescued, often the same day, and turned into meals for people who need them.  In this episode, Gideon shares how a retired hotelier built a lean, efficient operation that treats food waste as a problem worth solving, and what it would take to do the same elsewhere.

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Transcript

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HOST (Jennifer)  0:02  

Hello, welcome to this podcast called Finding Inspiration. It's a 20 or so minute weekly podcast, where we interview someone with an amazing story. After the show, I know you're going to feel energized, invigorated, and inspired by Jennifer Weissmann, welcome to finding inspiration. Tell me in one sentence, how can you solve the problem of hunger in the world?

GUEST (Gideon)  0:32  

By rescuing food surplus food, ending food waste to 300 people are invited to a wedding, sometimes half don't show well. And I've seen all that food -- all this extraordinary great food being thrown out. We are very green-minded organization. We're rescuing food to help climate change, and we're helping the poor. It's a two-prong mission. Our mission is to eradicate hunger in Israel. We picked up a party for 4000 people that will cancel within four hours. 20,000 pounds were delivered to the people by the people. 

HOST (Jennifer)  1:04  

I’m speaking with Gideon Ben-Ami.  He's the founder of Pesia’s Kitchen.  Pesia’s Kitchen is an amazing food rescue organization.  In 2021 they provided 1 million meals and saved them from the trash or from rotting on the vine.  If you want to know how to stop worldwide hunger…listen to this episode.  Hi Gideon.

GUEST (Gideon)  1:20  

Thank you for inviting me here today to speak with you about food rescue.

HOST (Jennifer)  1:24  

Let's talk a little bit about your background. 

GUEST (Gideon)  1:27  

I was born in Israel, but very early on in the age of 12, just about three years after the establishment of the State of Israel, my family immigrated to the United growing up the late 40s and early 50s in Israel, which was a very difficult time in terms of access to food and, and funding to buy food, clothing really has good jobs and running around defending the country. And it was a horrendous period for a child to grow up feeling. The true feeling of lack of nutrition, lack of food security.  I grew up hungry.   There were serious lengths and periods of time that we just didn't have enough food. There was always bread around because we had an uncle in another city who gave us bread.   I had to go by bus and travel a couple of hours to bring some loaves a few loaves of bread for Shabbat.   It was really that tough.  I remember that and it's somewhat traumatic to someone who's gone hungry and not knowing where the next meal gonna come from.  We were a family of six children. But eventually, we picked up left to America where we had plenty of food. And that's why I first recognize the issue of wasted food.  In America.  There I began to see how much food is being wasted.  

HOST (Jennifer)  2:53  

You lived in America and worked in restaurants and saw the waste?

GUEST (Gideon)   2:57  

Yes, I worked in restaurants as a teenager and in catering halls.  I saw that 300 people were invited to a wedding, sometimes half don't show up. And I've seen all that food all this extraordinary great food being thrown out. No one was picking up that food and bringing it to the poor in the area. And that bothered me. And there are many people who lack food security, and we don't know where their next meal is gonna come from. With rescued food, you can eradicate hunger. It's a doable challenge.  We can win this challenge.  We have proven that. 

HOST (Jennifer)  3:29  

Just to be clear rescued food is a meal or any kind of a box of food, a pound of food a kilo of food that would be thrown in the garbage or unused in some way.

GUEST (Gideon)  3:39  

Whatever foods are prepared foods or canned foods, or foods from agriculture, or baked good products.  You quantify the meals with the weight of all that food. So really a pound of food represents a meal and if you provide a million pounds of food -- you have provided a million meals.  It’s not necessarily that each one will be a prepared meal. Some of them need to be upgraded to a soup or a stew. But you will not be lacking food. If you receive packages or help support from our foundation.  And who is Pesia?  This is a legendary grandmother in my family.   She's a legend because she lived in small village in old Poland with maybe 2000 people.  Grandma Pesia was known to be able to feed anyone that was hungry. We don't know how she did that because she herself was a widower with seven children of her own.   Grandma Pesia was also poor but in her community, everybody knew that she would solve your hunger problem.   The local people would bring their pot of stew to layover for Friday night to Saturday in her oven. She would look at into pots and see if there was enough food for them.  If not, Grandma Pesia would add to each pot some more food.  All these stories about her inspired us to always think about not wasting food, bringing it over to where it's needed and can be used. And throughout the years, we've been in the food and hospitality business. We recognize the absurdity and paradox of food being thrown out.  When instead – just move the food to an impoverished community.  This helps the poor community who need it and does not do harm to Earth.   There is great harm to our earth when you leave rotting food.  Let’s talk about that later. 

HOST (Jennifer)  5:40  

Gideon, this statistic boggles my mind.  You said 1/3 of all food in the Western world is thrown in the garbage. It's not used. You had a very successful chain of restaurants, you were in the hotel business, and you are a very successful entrepreneur.   When you got to the point of considering retirement, something changed your mind and you pivoted.  Share your thought process, please.  

GUEST (Gideon)  6:01  

Well with Grandma Pesia in the background and her legendary history, having grown up hungry myself, and then moving to America and seeing the waste of food.  Well, it got me thinking.  About ten years ago I started thinking of retirement but I  thought to myself, I'm too young to retire.   I decided to do another 10 years in something that has nothing to do with profit for me.  I wanted to touch the neighborhood, the community I live in.   And then it little by little, Pesia’s Kitchen food rescue program turned out to be a business model that works.  We’ve adapted it over the years.  It’s a very simple model of rescuing food and moving it from A to B.   We have a small staff.  But our success is in using  70 or 80 volunteers.  This year we rescued 1 million meals and got them to the poor.  In 2022, we think we can double that to 2 million.

HOST (Jennifer)  6:52  

This is amazing. Let’s talk about the cost of this.  To be clear, Pesia’s Kitchen’s budget is 300,000 US dollars or .29 cents per meal.   So .29 cents a meal, you're delivering 1 million meals that would otherwise be thrown in the garbage are left to rot on the vine.  This is incredible. 

GUEST (Gideon)  7:08  

Yes.  And we aren’t even talking about how rescued food is saving damage to Earth to agriculture and to the environment.

HOST (Jennifer)  7:13  

Pesia’s Kitchen has a logistic center. Dried food, unused prepared foods, refrigerated foods.  Please walk us through how that happens. And then we'll talk more about how you move the food around the country.

GUEST (Gideon)  7:26  

We have partners or member organizations with our National Food Bank Leket Israel. About 70% - 80% of the food we receive is by shipments of trucks.   The other 20% - 30% of from different directions. One is corporate kitchens.

HOST (Jennifer)  7:48  

By corporate kitchens, you mean Google, Waze, Microsoft, Intel, etc.

GUEST (Gideon)  7:54  

Yes.  Electric Company, the police department, the fire department, anyone that has a corporate kitchen, or an industrial kitchen feeding several 100 of its employees.  We are there to take the unused meal and they go directly to shelters around town.  A homeless center will get to eat the same lunch that the Google employees ate earlier day -- maybe just a couple hours later.  It's amazing. And those shifts and employees of Google are so happy to see that their food is not thrown out. Imagine the biggest company in the world feeding its employees. Then what’s leftover, goes straight to shelters a few hours later. 

HOST (Jennifer) 8:42  

You have a team of volunteers. They go out to Google, they pick up the unused 200 300 meals, whatever it is, then they drive it straight to the shelter's kitchen.  

GUEST(Gideon) 9:00
We use the community volunteers to pick up the food and move it from A to B.   We very few people working on staff. It's really a group of five staff members that handled all the logistics of moving this amount of food – 1 million meals.  With a budget of $300,000 to save 1 million meals. 

HOST (Jennifer)  9:10  

Let’s focus on that for one minute. In America these nonprofit organizations are huge.  They are bloated, and they have giant budgets and the CEO is making millions of dollars like for Red Cross.  I am absolutely stunned that for $300,000 your team of five with 70 Volunteers can move 1 million meals. What do you expect to do in 2022?  You’re looking to replicate this hub in South Tel Aviv in different places throughout the country.

GUEST (Gideon)  9:38  

In 2022, we expect to move 2 million meals.  Also, we don't have any rental expenses. The community lets us operate our office for free.  And we use donated shipping containers for storage and actual offices.  We first started running around for the first few years between restaurants but this was very small quantities of food. This was hundreds of meals, maybe 1000s of meals.   We gained real traction about three or four years ago when we hooked up with the food banks.   We began distributing goods from the food bank and then we started to get into very big numbers.  The big difference is that our budget didn't expand because we didn't have to pay to move the food. 

HOST (Jennifer)  10:27  

Do you count on community support?

GUEST (Gideon)  10:32  

Yes.  Pesia’s Kitchen is a food bank.  People come to the bank, the bank does not come to people, right.  Next week, we will meet with another Mayor.  We will tell him that we can bring over 50,000 shekels or $17,000 dollars of fresh produce.  We just need a parking lot or space to set it out.  And we'll have the local volunteers will come over and pick it up. And what do you say about that? And I'm sure he's going to say -- wonderful. I hope that he embraces the project, how could he turn away that valuable amount of food?

HOST (Jennifer)  11:15  

That's the interesting part about this food rescue concept.  Usually, in a negotiation, there's someone who's going to say, Nah that's not for me. This is a win-win.   Has anyone said no to you?

GUEST (Gideon)  11:27  

This is a most unusual business I was ever involved in.  Everybody is satisfied -- your food donors and financial donors, the partnering organizations, and of course the people who are hungry.  It’s bizarre to me that everybody's thanking Pesia’s Kitchen all day long. It’s one of those things that there's no more challenge to break even.   Every day is a break-even day and that's a beautiful thing.  Today we had a company reach out to deliver food that they couldn’t sell.  

HOST (Jennifer)  11:59  

You received 4000 pounds of vegetables, 2000 loaves of bread just this morning?  And all that would have been thrown out if Pesia’s Kitchen didn’t take it?

GUEST (Gideon)  12:08  

Can you imagine 4000 pounds of food thrown out?   Let’s talk about climate change and the environment and how food rescue is helping.  I went to see landfills.   They are horrible and they are ruining our earth.  Why not bring it to the people who need it.  We want to be the first country that eradicates chronic hunger. 

HOST (Jennifer)  12:24  

I know one of your goals and this is a lofty goal, but I think you can do it is have CNN and Fox News, and the New York Times run a headline that says Israel is the first country to eradicate hunger. Is there any reason why this can't be done?\

GUEST (Gideon)  12:37  

I don't know why this cannot be done.  This is something that keeps me up at night. It's not right.

HOST (Jennifer)  12:41  

Tell me in one sentence. How can you solve the problem of hunger in the world?

GUEST (Gideon)  12:46  

By rescuing food surplus food and ending food waste everywhere.  Even fruits that don't look perfect.

HOST (Jennifer)  12:51  

Is that called the ugly fruit? And what is that?

GUEST (Gideon)  12:56  

It's a new movement that's advocating to use of fruits and vegetables even though they're not perfect looking. Even in the supermarket itself.  If you notice in the produce aisle there is the guy always taken out ugly and bruised produce.  Yeah, that amounts to tons of food.   In France, there that's a law supermarket are not allowed to throw and waste food.  They must call a non for profit. I wish that that pass a law in Israel and all over the world. 

HOST (Jennifer)  13:18  

That seems like a no-brainer to institute.   Let me ask you since you're bringing up law, the Good Samaritan Law that was approved in Israel. Tell us about that and how that has affected Pesia’s Kitchen?

GUEST (Gideon) 13:29  

The Good Samaritan Law makes the donor responsible for any damage that might occur to the recipient if the food if he ate made him ill.  Many organizations were afraid to give food donations from surplus food for fear they would be legally responsible.   This never really happened.  Nothing significant, but people were always afraid of it in years past. not today. Today, it's already there's awareness of rescue food and with the food banks, it happens less and less.

HOST (Jennifer)  14:29  

You mentioned supermarkets not buying a perfect-looking cucumber. What about leaving food on the vine and what does that do to our environment?  

GUEST (Gideon)  14:41  

It ruins our earth.  Let’s talk about climate change and the earth.  Leaving food on the vine hurts the soil.  Farmers rework the soil with rotten produce that was sitting there emitting very toxic gases. The landfills are emitting so much toxic gas causing climate change that it’s second to gas emitted by cars. That's how big this thing is for the climate.  Pesia’s Kitchen is a very green-minded organization.  We're rescuing food to help climate change. And we're helping the poor be able to eat. It's a two-prong mission. It's first, you know, you tried to help people to eat, you know, it's just such a basic thing. You know food on the table seems like everybody should automatically have that.  I would say it's the number one issue in life.  Try not to eat for a few days.  If you don’t have food, nothing goes well for you.  The world has a surplus amount of food.  The world manufactures a lot more food than we need and on top of that – they give you a sell-by date or expiration date. And then everybody throws it out.  It's a joke.

HOST (Jennifer) 15:36  

It's a crime against humanity.

GUEST (Gideon)  15:38  

I bought Himalayan salt, you know, the pink salt. Yeah, it's been there for millions of years.   They put it in a bottle and slap a two-year life expectancy on it. My great-grandchildren can use this salt. But they tell me after two years, I must throw it out. 

HOST (Jennifer)  15:57  

That is a crazy scenario with Himalayan salt. 

GUEST (Gideon)  16:05  

It’s a mineral that sits there and they just take a piece of it -- grind it, put it in the bottle. And for some reason, the food companies say you can only use it in the next two years.

HOST (Jennifer)  16:18  

I want to talk about what Corona did to this idea of the new poor? Do you have any stories of people you can share?

GUEST (Gideon)  16:31  

Yes, I do.  When the corona hit and people lost their jobs and had no cash flow to buy food. So, one day a guy comes to us in a new luxurious car.  He was in a jacket and tie looked like an executive and he asked me if I give him food for his family.   And I said, sure.  I asked him “How are you holding up?”    He told me he was just laid off.   He said he had to bring the company car back tomorrow. But I thought I'd use the car today just this opportunity to pick up some food because I don't know how I'm going to do over the next couple of weeks without income.

HOST (Jennifer)  17:08  

He had no cash at hand?  Immediately a lot of new poor people.  And that happened to a lot of people.  The corona forced people out of work quickly.  They had no cash at hand, they had no savings, and they came to you. And I know at some point you switch from corporate kitchens to making hearty soups. 

GUEST (Gideon)  17:30  

As corona broke out, people stayed home. And the corporate kitchens closed and obviously weren't operating.  This was tragic because by then we built a dependency for about 1000 people with a prepared food program.

HOST (Jennifer)  17:44  

When the corporate kitchen stopped, they stopped employees coming into the office, you had 1000 people who were counting on your daily meals?

GUEST (Gideon)  17:51  

Exactly. And we felt that responsibility. We asked our donors to help us build a soup production kitchen in one of our shipping containers donated by Zim Shipping which cost $30,000. 

HOST (Jennifer)  18:05  

For $30,000, you built a kitchen where you could prepare soup for 1000 people?

GUEST (Gideon)  18:09  

We built this because of COVID. And on our own, we began making soup production by upgrading the vegetables into a very nutritious soup. 

HOST (Jennifer)  18:17  

It’s a complete meal. And again, for about .32 cents a day for the soup.  That’s just amazing. When you create four or five more hubs around the country here. What does that do to your budget? Do you have to increase your budget? Do you need more hires in your core group to go from 2 million meals to 4 million meals?

GUEST (Gideon)  18:37  

Nope.  We're all set up for it with community involvement

HOST (Jennifer)  18:41  

With community involvement, how many meals, do you think you could provide in the next five years without changing your budget?

GUEST (Gideon) 18:49  

Millions.  Our mission is to eradicate hunger in Israel.  Israeli solved the problem of chronic hunger in this country.  A very high-tech country, stopping hunger with a very simple tech or low tech way.  We have figured out the most simple way to get food from A to B.  So simple and low cost and so efficient, that might even be considered brilliant. Why? Because it proves that you can end hunger at very little cost. And this is a mission of ours also to entice governments and inspire big organizations and big international food organizations and donors to say let's use this model. Let's adopt this model in our area. Because we have a proof of concept. We're now scaling up to a real startup. And when we go through next year and show 2, 3 or 4 million meals, I think there'll be great interest in the business model. 

HOST (Jennifer)  19:44  

So many tons of food is being thrown in the garbage dumpsters. And if you had a network to grab that food before it hits the dumpster -- that’s perfectly delicious and edible.  And get it as you say a few hours later to homeless shelters - wow brilliant.   Your business model is proven. I know that Grandma Pesia is looking down on you with a big broad smile.  She’s thinking her grandson did something unbelievably inspiring.   And I thank you for your time. Thank you for joining us this week on Finding Inspiration. Hey, I would appreciate it if you would click on that subscribe button and share this podcast with a friend. See you next week, I'm Jennifer Weissmann.