The posting
About The SF Market
The SF Market makes things grow — for farmers, distributors, wholesalers, retailers, restaurants, and communities. Home to a diverse group of merchants in a single vibrant San Francisco marketplace, our wide range of produce businesses supply the widest, best-tasting selection of fresh produce available in Northern California. We are a platform for critical access and scale, providing the food infrastructure, programs, and relationships that help hundreds of farmers and Bay Area food businesses — and their communities — thrive.
The SF Market is San Francisco's original, and only, wholesale produce market. As a pillar of the Bay Area's food economy for over 60 years and a nonprofit social enterprise since 2013, we create jobs for over 500 people and foster efficiency, diversity, and innovation. The Market moves millions of pounds of fresh produce through the Bay Area, occupies 485,000 square feet of food-focused warehouse and logistics space in San Francisco's Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood, and is implementing a Reinvestment Plan to upgrade our facility to support new food businesses and an engaged community. The SF Market's focus on growth extends to the entire food system, with programs directed toward food recovery, sustainability, and Market access. Learn more at www.thesfmarket.org.
Summary
The Food Recovery Lead manages the day-to-day operations of The SF Market’s Food Recovery Program, which recovers surplus fresh produce and grocery items from Market merchants and redistributes them free of charge to a network of nonprofit Community Partners serving food-insecure Bay Area residents. Since launching in 2016, the program has recovered more than 10.6 million pounds of food—an average of roughly 4,000 pounds per day— equivalent to an estimated 3,300 meals daily. Reporting to the Market Community Program Manager, this role builds and maintains relationships with merchants and Community Partners, oversees donation quality and data tracking, and represents The SF Market to funders, City agencies, and community stakeholders.
Essential Duties
- Establish, cultivate, and sustain relationships with Market merchants and nonprofit community partner organizations, in partnership with the Community Program Manager
- Manage the day-to-day operations of the Food Recovery Program, including:
- Beginning each workday Mon-Fri, at 6 AM: conduct 2 hours of rapid-paced communications via text and in-person while coordinating surplus food donations from Market merchants to Community Partners
- Maintaining consistent, effective communication with merchants and community partners
- Providing oversight and quality control over donations
- Collecting and tracking donation data
- Analyze and report program data to funders and partners, including grant reports, in partnership with the Community Program Manager
- Create and contribute to communications materials about the Program
- Represent The SF Market to key program stakeholders, including Market merchants, board members, partners, funders, City leaders, media, and community leaders
- Support community partner purchasing on the Market by facilitating Merchant–Customer relationships
- Support the Community Program Manager in managing program funder relationships
- Support continued implementation of SB 1383 on the Market and with City oversight agencies
- Serve as liaison between the City of San Francisco and Market merchants, providing annual donation reports, in partnership with the Community Program Manager
- Collaborate with the Community Program Manager on program planning and design for the future of the Food Recovery Program
Qualifications
- 2 or more years of experience working in food recovery, food banking, or the food insecurity field
- Experience working in a nonprofit environment
Requirements
Skills & Abilities
- Ability to identify a wide variety of fruits and vegetables and evaluate the safety and quality of donations
- Proficiency in Microsoft Office, particularly Excel
- Extremely organized and efficient, with excellent attention to detail
- High level of professionalism, diplomacy, and good judgment
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills; comfortable using phone and text messaging
- Ability to professionally represent the Market to community partners, funders, the public, media, and other key stakeholders
- Ability to effectively communicate with and motivate a diverse cross-section of stakeholders
- Experience recruiting and managing volunteers
- Able to work independently with minimal oversight, and collaboratively as part of a team
- Proactive problem-solver who works well within tight time constraints
- Able to coordinate multiple sites, personnel, and materials, and to negotiate competing priorities
- Knowledge of food recovery best practices, including Safe Food Handling and the Good Samaritan Food Donation Act
Physical Demands
- Able to walk 2–3 miles on a regular basis
- Able to lift and move boxes and bags of product up to 50 lbs., by hand and with a hand truck
- Able to work in a loud, fast-paced, physical environment around forklifts, trucks, and refrigerated warehouse spaces
Preferred Qualifications
- Demonstrated understanding of the policy environment shaping food recovery, including but not limited to SB 1383
- Able to think strategically about the Program's future, including assessing the costs and benefits of potential changes
- Comfortable functioning as an 'outsider' within a merchant business, operating the Program without hampering merchant operations
- Experience with or knowledge of farming, packing, distribution, handling, and/or storage of produce
- Knowledge of the wholesale/retail produce business
- Ability to speak Spanish and/or Mandarin
This job description in no way states or implies that these are the only duties to be performed by this employee. He or she will be required to follow any other instructions and to perform any other duties requested by his or her supervisor.
