East Coast Produce Expo continues to break records, this time with more than 20,000 pounds of fresh produce donated by exhibitors following the event. This is a 300% increase from the 2025 trade show.
Kelly Stainner, Florida regional director of the Society of St. Andrew, says that amount of food is the equivalent of 84,000 servings that fed 8,400 people.
“If it had been thrown out, we would have had over 10 tons of food in the landfill,” she says.
Stainner was a part of the team that packed the produce donated by exhibitors. Society of St. Andrew, which is a national hunger-relief organization, then provided the food collected to Feeding South Florida.
What Stainner says makes this more meaningful is that the team at Feeding South Florida could continue routes and deliveries while her Society of St. Andrew team provided a truck to collect the produce. The vehicle was donated through an organization called Move for Hunger, which allowed the truck to stay on the property throughout the show.
“The truck got there Monday morning, and that way people could put their food in the truck and keep it fresh,” she says. “That truck brought it to Feeding South Florida after the show. Feeding South Florida to not have to give up one of their trucks and one of their drivers, and they could use those trucks for doing what they need to do.”
Stainner says produce shows offer top-tier items when it comes to fresh produce, and growers generously donate at the conclusion.
“We love knowing that when that truck pulls after the show, that people in need are going to get the best of the best and some things they probably haven’t even tried before,” she says.
The quantity donated surprised Stainner and her colleague, who were only a two-person team. Stainner says she’s already planning how to handle donations for the 2027 event.
“We didn’t realize we would have as much as we had,” she says. “We were so grateful that so many people were going to be fed. It was great, and it just makes you so happy to see it all.”
Stainner says the team at the JW Marriott Miami Turnberry Resort & Spa was extremely helpful in running the dock and loading produce onto the truck.
“It takes a lot of different people to make this work, but it was so rewarding afterwards, and just knowing what we had done,” she says. “And the produce is amazing looking. It’s so beautiful, and there’s so much that people can do with it.”
