KALAMAZOO, Mich. – According to the United Nations, 750 million people are going hungry. Every day, 25,000 men, women and children die of starvation.

It was these numbers that captured the minds and hearts of Jim and Jane Van Tuinen and spurred them to found Kalamazoo Valley Gleaners, which they did in 2023.

This massive operation, now located off King Highway in Kalamazoo, is the retirement dream of Jim Van Tuinen. Van Tuinen always had a dream of feeding the hungry and reducing food waste, and with the help of farmers in his region, his venture is a success.

“We’re ecstatic to be in production,” Van Tuinen said. “The farmers embrace what we are doing fondly, and they’re too happy to give us their cosmetically imperfect surplus vegetables. They know how much gets wasted, and they’re happy to let us take it and feed the world with it.”

According to Van Tuinen, up to 40 percent of produce grown in North America never makes it to the table. But today, his team of 50 volunteers is working to change that, one vegetable at a time. The group helps to combat hunger in West Michigan and beyond.

Several farms in the area are contributing to this effort, including large farms such Walther Farms in Three Rivers, Mich., Bolthouse Fresh in Hodgkins, Ill., and Schafer Lake Fruit, Inc. in Hartford, Mich.

“So far, we have five to six farmers who have committed to us and the number is growing,” Jane said.

Among the Van Tuinen’s first steps in establishing Kalamazoo Valley Gleaners was meeting with local farmers to see what produce might be available and how to gain access to it.

The Kalamazoo Gleaners handle all sorts of fruits and vegetables, such as celery, asparagus, turnips, beets, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, apples, cabbage, eggplant, peppers, pears, carrots, mushrooms, squash, apricots, zucchini and frozen products – but mostly potatoes.

“Mostly what is available are potatoes, cosmetically imperfect but nutritious,” Jim said. “Once the potatoes are delivered to us, some 20 to 40 volunteers will be needed to wash the food, put onto a conveyor belt where volunteers trim defects, place the potato pieces on cookie trays and racks, then send them through a chopper.”

The food is then dehydrated, allowing it to be shipped overseas to refugee camps, schools, missions and orphanages. So far, Kalamazoo Valley Gleaners has sent shipments to Liberia, Honduras and Uganda.

“There’s tasks that can be done in this building by special needs people, and we’re hoping to get school children and retirees to help as well,” Jim said.

The heart of this entire operation, Jim said, is the dehydrator. Roughly 30 carts will go into the dehydrator, which equals about 1,000 pounds. The dehydration takes about 10 hours. After this, the produce will be packaged. Each month about 2,000 boxes of dehydrated produce will be distributed to refugee camps, schools, missions and orphanages in 26 countries by West Michigan relief agency partners.

“About a year into my retirement in 2021, Jane and I came back to Michigan from our getaway in Florida and I told her I need something to do,” Jim said. “A few days later I came across an article in a magazine about a nonprofit called Sus Manos Gleaners, located in Jenison.”

Sus Manos Gleaners process food from Michigan farmers, shipping it to Christian missions that feed the poor. A visit ensued, and the Van Tuinens learned about the gleaning business and got their own gleaning business up and running.

“The farmers told me that food might otherwise end up in a landfill,” Jim said. “The food waste in our country, unfortunately, is huge. There is no question that this planet produces enough food. It’s just a matter of getting it into the hands of people who need it.”

According to the USDA, about 30 to 40 percent of the food supply in the U.S. is wasted. Much of that food is nutritionally valuable but either is left over or considered “imperfect” and therefore not shipped to grocery stores. Food is the single largest category of material that ends up in U.S. landfills.

“We spent some time volunteering in Jenison and learning the business,” Jim said. “We also visited two other gleaners in Canada. They gave us a model to follow.”

The couple networked widely, approaching friends and their church congregation to talk about their mission of feeding the hungry and to ask for donations.

“We were able to raise $923,000 in donations,” Jim said. “And volunteers – we need many, many volunteers.”

They were also in need of a building. A generous donor purchased a 23,000-square-foot building off King Highway for their use. In addition, an organization known as Feed the Hungry, located in South Bend, Ind., has committed to assist them with shipping and to absorb the shipping costs, helping them deliver 2,200 boxes of produce per shipping container to churches, missions, orphanages and overseas.

Through a grant from an anonymous foundation, Kalamazoo Valley Gleaners has been able to purchase a massive food dehydrator and is now working to purchase and install the remaining needed machinery.

“We’re providing 400,000 meals per day at this point, but we have a goal of providing a million meals a day,” Jim said. “While we’re mostly working with potato farmers, we’re always accepting other produce, too.

“One of the things very important to us is to promote a sense of community. We are a distinctly Christian faith-based organization here to glorify God.”