Today we’d like to introduce you to Alexandra White.
Hi Alexandra, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I lived in West Africa for a few years in my early 30s. One day, when I was living in the village of Frambo, I was preparing a vegetable stew in the company of my young neighbors – children too young to help their families in the fields. It was lightly sprinkling and the kids were buzzing about transporting the vegetable cutaways from my soup to my compost outside. It grew quiet and then a short time later, giggles erupted from the little grass-covered area where I held small gatherings. Outside, the kids had started a small fire with a very large aluminum tomato can perched on top as a pot. When I looked inside, I realized they were making their own soup from the cutaways. Fruit and vegetables nourish the soul and no human on this earth should go hungry. Access to fresh, whole food matters. When my mother and I became connected with our partner Nita, who was gleaning backyard fruit, ProduceGood took root with the three-part mission to reduce food waste, increase food access and build community. We called it the three-legged stool.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Our food recovery work has evolved to meet the increasing need for access to fresh fruit and vegetables by preventing food waste. We divert fresh, edible food from landfills to instead feed a growing community of San Diegans facing food scarcity. Launching our farmers market collection was a pivot from our traditional gleaning from large backyard orchards. The produce recovered moves directly to feeding programs rather than passing through the food bank. Covid was challenging because in order to carry out the work, we needed to work in small groups of 2-3 people while many of our food system partners were struggling or forced to shutdown. Post-pandemic, we began working with grocery retailers by culling their unsellable, but edible food from what is not edible. Every phase has had its own unique challenges. This continues today with SNAP and MediCal funds being cut and thousands of San Diegans losing access to food.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
From the very beginning, I have wanted to experience everything life has to offer, and careerwise, it has always been my goal to have an exceptional professional toolkit. I’m a process-driven, team-oriented person and I love to problem solve through reverse engineering. There were some key experiences that really prepared me for co-founding and developing ProduceGood. My earliest jobs were in restaurants where the camaraderie and intensity always drew me back. I was a hostess at the Newport Beach Chart House in high school, waited tables through graduate school in Colorado, and then again after several years teaching middle school writing and social studies, I went back to restaurants and managed the Cardiff Chart House here in San Diego. Restaurant operations are fast-paced, social and propelled by a careful balance between quality and profitability. They can fail easily, but if you pay attention to people and margins, you can develop the discipline to succeed. I also spent several years living in French-speaking West Africa, first as a community development volunteer for the Peace Corps in Côte d’Ivoire and then running central operations and developing monitoring and evaluation programming for a multinational public health project based in Togo and Ghana. I did a lot of writing, training and educating during these years and learned how to measure and report on program performance as part of a multi-disciplinary team with diverse cultural representation. The third key professional experience was working in global sales readiness for big tech. I came into this work as a technical writer, but quickly developed a strong mix of go-to-market strategy, leadership and operational skills. I honed my ability to align cross-functional teams and again used data-driven insights for decision-making and accountability. The diversity of my experiences and breadth across sectors grounded me when it came to envisioning the ProduceGood roadmap and to getting us where we are today.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
All the skills in the world mean nothing without strong teams of people to carry the work forward — those we teach and learn from constantly – the unifying thread and ultimate success factor for any undertaking. It can be challenging to keep people top of mind when managing stress, but at the end of the day, we are all here for each other and everyone needs an opportunity that gives them agency and a sense of purpose.
Image Credits
Tomoko H. Matsubayashi, Tomografica
