Food for flood victims
Archived article from Oct 1, 1999
By Phyllis Gottlieb
When Ed Barrood, food manufacturing specialist at the Food Manufacturing Technology Facility, heard that it would be days before flood victims in Bound Brook and Manville could return home, he knew there was something he could do to make their stay in the shelters a bit more tolerable: He could arrange for the Rutgers facility to contribute much-needed food supplies.
The food manufacturing facility, part of the Center for Advanced Food Technology, runs tests of food production and packaging techniques for large and small companies. Once the tests are complete, however, thousands of pounds of meat, vegetables, cheese, pasta, canned and frozen goods are frequently left over.
This food took valuable freezer and refrigerator space. But for the past three years, Barrood, who is also a student at University College, has been directing the surplus to soup kitchens and food banks in local communities. In just the past month, he shipped some 1,300 pounds of food to the Community Food Bank in Hillside and another 1,000 pounds to Elijah's Promise soup kitchen in New Brunswick.
So, after Tropical Storm Floyd, he was more than happy to truck 400 pounds of food and 1,200 meals-ready-to-eat (MREs), the remains of a current Department of Defense project, to Central Jersey flood victims.
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