James Kanoff co-founded The Farmlink Project in 2020 while being a student at Stanford University. When the COVID-19 pandemic caused Stanford to send students home, James and his fellow classmates knew they had to do something to help their local communities. They created The Farmlink Project with the intention to rescue surplus food from farmers and deliver to food banks and families in need. On this episode of “Food Lab Talk,” Michiel speaks with James about how The Farmlink Project has grown to recover and deliver more than one hundred and ten million pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables; what inspired Kanoff to “never stop” in his pursuit of change; and why his dream is to put himself and his co-workers out of business. 

James Kanoff: “Maybe it’s just being a college student; call it naive. But we’re going to try, because what else can we do? What is the other option? The alternative is (the) food bank completely runs out of food. You have literally freeway passes of lines. We have to try something.” 

01:51 Intro to James Kanoff

02:55 The origins of The Farmlink Project

06:03 Identifying which types of farmers have surplus produce

08:07 Growing Farmlink from a one-off project to a larger movement

10:03 Food loss and waste is not just a pandemic problem

11:20 What gave Kanoff and other early founders the audacity to tackle food loss and waste

12:19 What keeps students committed to this problem post-pandemic

13:22 The state of The Farmlink Project in 2023

15:05 Farmlink’s mission and vision for the future

16:21 Moving at the speed of trust

19:09 Dream big, start small, move fast

22:42 How Farmlink is funded

24:12 How listeners can get involved with The Farmlink Project

26:39 The Farmlink community

Links

• Learn more about The Farmlink Project
• New York Times: ‘We Had to Do Something’: Trying to Prevent Massive Food Waste
• CNN: These friends rescued harvests headed for the trash and helped turn food waste into millions of meals
• Los Angeles Magazine: How Farmlink Helped Save Endangered L.A. Food Banks

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*The views expressed by the guests in this podcast don't necessarily represent the host’s views, nor those of his employer.