Meet A Food Waste Hero: Neil Ringer

Happy Food Waste Prevention Week!

At Retaaza, preventing food waste starts long before produce reaches a market table or your plate. It starts with supporting Georgia farmers, purchasing surplus food that might otherwise be landfilled, and creating new market opportunities for our diverse network of local farmers.

The theme for Food Waste Prevention Week this year is “Food Heroes in Your Neighborhood,” and we’ve got just the person in mind.

Meet Neil Ringer, Retaaza’s Value Chain Senior Manager! Week to week, Neil coordinates between Retaaza’s farm partners, customers, Market Operators, and internal team to keep produce moving from farms to communities. We sat down with Neil to learn more about what goes into getting produce from Georgia farms to Retaaza Markets and how food waste prevention shows up in his day-to-day work.

Neil, part of your job is coordinating produce orders for Retaaza Markets. What does your job look like week to week, and how does your work connect to Retaaza’s mission?‍

Week to week, I’m coordinating between our farm partners and our customers to serve many different Retaaza programs. Our Retaaza Markets program is our only retail-facing operation, and we operate multiple markets Monday through Friday.

I work with 5-10 Georgia farms each week to fulfill the needs of all our markets. I also set our pricing strategy at the markets to reflect an affordable array of items that are comparable to, or better than, grocery store pricing.

This work supports Retaaza’s mission in a few practical ways. Matching supply to demand keeps local food accessible and affordable. Working closely and fairly with farms is part of what it means to actually support them, rather than just buy from them. And staying on top of inventory helps make sure food gets used rather than wasted, including food that reaches families facing food insecurity.

What goes into getting the right produce to each Retaaza Market each week? What are some of the things you’re thinking about when you’re placing orders?‍

A lot goes into making sure we have the right products at each market. I work with local farms to understand what harvest availability looks like each week and coordinate deliveries or pickups of our orders.

I also use sales information to understand what products are selling well at each market, while working with our Market Operators and team to listen to what community members are requesting or excited about. That information helps us make better decisions about what and how much to order, which also helps us minimize food waste.

All produce comes through our Westside warehouse, where we check quality before sending it out to Retaaza Markets.

Where do you see food waste, or the threat of food waste, show up in your work? How does Retaaza help prevent good food from going to waste?‍

Since Retaaza Markets are retail operations, we primarily see food waste in produce that isn’t sold at markets and is reaching the end of its shelf life. We see a smaller amount of food waste on the warehouse side, where we occasionally have quality issues with products before they go out.

‍In both scenarios, we have a plan to deal with waste.

At the warehouse, we do quality checks on all produce multiple times a week and remove any product that has an issue. Similarly, our Market Operator team removes produce with quality issues when packing up after markets.

From there, we determine whether the produce is still edible and can be donated, or if the quality has reached a point where the items should be composted. We work with our donation partner, Second Helpings Atlanta, which is located in the same building, to get donatable products to community organizations as quickly as possible.

All produce that moves through Retaaza Markets will either be sold to a customer, donated to a food rescue organization, or composted.

What’s something about your job, or the journey food takes from farm to Retaaza Market, that you wish more people knew?

I wish more people knew how much uncertainty a farmer works with before that produce ever reaches a Retaaza Market. Weather, timing, even a delayed rain can shift a harvest week to week.

Part of my job is absorbing that uncertainty so customers don’t have to feel it. That means adjusting orders, communicating substitutions, and planning around seasonality so what shows up still feels reliable, even when what’s actually available has changed three times that week.

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At the end of the day, there are a lot of moving pieces between a Georgia farm and a Retaaza Market. Neil’s work helps make sure those pieces come together in a way that supports farmers, meets the needs of our customers, and keeps as much good food as possible in the hands of people who can use it.

Visit a Retaaza Market near you! Check here for market details, schedule, and to see what local produce is at the market.

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