Helping on both sides of the border: Roadrunner, Mexican Food Banking Network sign food-sharing pact

Since taking over as president and CEO of Roadrunner Food Bank last August, Dana Yost has learned just how much food insecurity impacts families all over New Mexico. But in that time, he also has learned that the issue of hunger stretches beyond borders.

Prior to joining Roadrunner Food Bank, Yost spent 14 years working for food banks in Arizona and forged several partnerships with food banks in Mexico during that time. He began to learn how much food was being wasted in Mexico, due to a lack of resources needed to save that food.

“Billions of pounds of fresh produce is going to waste in Mexico every single year,” he explained. “Mexico needs help to rescue that food not only for their people, but for folks in the U.S. as well.”

Yost soon began speaking with officials from Bancos De Alimentos De Mêxico, or the Mexican Food Banking Network, about establishing a partnership with Roadrunner Food Bank that would allow the two parties to rescue more Mexican produce and give it to needy families in both Mexico and New Mexico.

After several months, the two entities settled on a food-sharing program known as the “International Food Exchange Project.”

“This partnership is about doing something to connect the food waste with the folks that need it, because no matter where you live, having access to nutritious, healthy food is a human right,” Yost said.

As part of the agreement, both organizations will work to identify where excess produce is being grown in Mexico and start building relationships with those farms and farmers to ensure it is rescued and sent to local food banks. Roadrunner Food Bank will assist the Mexican Food Banking Network by providing funding for the harvesting and packing of the rescued produce.

Produce first will be sent to Mexican food banks. Any excess produce then will go to Roadrunner Food Bank, which will distribute it to its domestic partners.

“I like to refer to it as the cup and saucer model, where Mexico is the cup and (Roadrunner Food Bank) is the saucer,” Yost said. “That cup will overflow as we capture more waste, and we’ll catch that in the saucer and bring that to the U.S. to feed hungry families (in New Mexico).”

To celebrate this agreement, Mexican Food Banking Network leadership, including CEO Mariana Jimenez, made the trip to Albuquerque on Tuesday to sign the formal agreement at the Roadrunner Food Bank of New Mexico facility. Standing between American and Mexican flags, Jimenez, who spoke on behalf of the 58 food banks that are part of the Mexican Food Banking Network, said this partnership shows that there are no borders when it comes to getting everyone the food they need.

“We need to come together as one to fight this huge problem of hunger and food waste,” she said. “Maybe this can be replicated in not only other states, but other countries ... can collaborate together to achieve one main goal.”

Yost and Jimenez signed matching documents that were written in English and Spanish that made the International Food Exchange Project official. And they hugged as others gathered at Roadrunner headquarters met the moment with a round of applause.

Once the signing was over, Yost and Joe Phy, Roadrunner Vice President of Strategic Initiatives, took Jimenez and several other Mexican Food Banking network officials on a tour of the food bank’s warehouse space.

Neighbors on the border, the close relationship between and the occasional confusion of their two states were not lost on Yost.

“Of all the states in the nation, I can’t imagine a better state to be the first to enter into this international partnership,” he said. “Half of the country sometimes doesn’t even think we’re a state — they think we’re a part of Mexico. And what I’m here to tell you is that we are absolutely a part of Mexico today.”