Randy Asadoor and his family created Keystone Packing, a nonprofit that works exclusively with the California Association of Food Banks’ Farm to Family program. The Asadoors’ labor of love started about 15 years ago as a passion project of his late wife.
Asadoor’s family business supplied raw products to fruit processors around the country for use in purees, pies, yogurt fillings and more, and Feeding America reached out to Asadoor and his wife, who then expanded it into a 501(c) organization now with 15 staff members to help process all the food donations.
Keystone Packing averages about a truckload a day of fresh produce to the Farm to Family program, he says.
Asadoor and Sabrina Thakkar, director of the California Association of Food Banks’ Farm to Family program, recently spoke about the partnership on the “Tip of the Iceberg” podcast.
Keystone Packing’s 3.5-acre facility in Reedly, Calif., has processed more than 12 million pounds of fresh produce, including stone fruit, citrus, kiwifruit and more.
“We work to serve 6 million families across California to make sure they have healthy produce available to them,” Takkar said. “It’s just unbelievable the partnership we have, and it’s just going so strong. The needs are increasing, the demand is increasing, unfortunately, but Randy is there to fully support us.”
And Asadoor said he and Takkar have bigger goals.
“We’re just short of 13 million pounds, and I know Sabrina and I are coming up with a lot of ideas right now on the drawing boards of how to grow that,” he said. “We are so excited to be a part of this.”
