Manteca’s Second Harvest Food Bank has received some 80,000 pounds of leftover foodstuff in the last three months to be given to those in need from some 52 Starbucks coffee stores in the Central Valley, according to food bank operations officer Rudy Valencia.

Twenty-eight stores delivering their day-old products daily come from the greater Manteca area and another 24 come from Starbucks in Stanislaus County agency through the national Feeding America program. 

Food Bank spokeswoman Jessica Vaughan said her workers can take the Starbuck’s products and just put them in cold storage or in the freezer for future distribution in the region.

Since the inception of the program in April, the food donations from the coffee firm have continued day by day, Vaughan said. 

Most of their sandwiches and salads come from the Taylor Farm in Tracy ready for sale.  In a recent trial of a new sandwich product test run there were some 15,000 sandwiches produced marked as samples to make sure all the stores could be serviced.  At the end of the test all those untouched sandwiches were donated to Second Harvest Food Bank’s storage areas.     

To contact Glenn Kahl, email gkahl@mantecabulletin.com.