SWAN QUARTER — Food Bank of the Albemarle is heading a new pilot program designed to eliminate food loss and fight hunger across the state.

On Friday, legislators and business leaders will meet at Pamlico Shores Produce in Hyde County to discuss the new program. The food bank is partnering with Pamlico Shores to rescue lower-grade potatoes and culls that would otherwise be destroyed through installation of a potato bagger, said Annya Soucy, director of communications and special events at Food Bank of the Albemarle. The event will start at 10 a.m. at Pamlico Shores Produce and will lead to a luncheon and panel discussion at Swan Quarter Volunteer Fire Department.

The USDA will provide a trailer for an estimated 1 million pounds of bagged potatoes to be distributed throughout North Carolina’s seven food banks and, in turn, dispersed among local food pantries, Soucy said.

“We’ve actually come to recognize there’s an amount of food that not only doesn’t make its way to supermarkets, but also doesn’t make it to people in need,” Soucy said. “We kind of stumbled across Pamlico Shores and realized they were actually disposing of potatoes that couldn’t go to market but were still edible. And we came to recognize there’s a lot of food across the state that is being disposed of the same way.”

After a tour of Pamlico Shores’ facility and farm operations, attendees will have lunch and hear three panel discussions about agriculture, feeding the hungry and legislative initiatives. Among the speakers scheduled to join the conversation are Larry Wooten, president of the NC Farm Bureau, Dr. Richard Reich with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, Rep. Bob Steinburg, representative for the District 1, and Dick Tunnell, a local farmer, among others, Soucy said.

“The point is to bring all of the interested parties to the table, show them this pilot program we are kicking off with Pamlico Shores and spark a discussion about where we should go from here and who needs to be involved so, as we move forward, all the playmakers are on the same page,” Soucy said.

According to a study by Hunger Free Minnesota, there are 219 million pounds of edible food lost in North Carolina each year. The figure was formulated based on a five-year average in the study. Currently, Food Bank of the Albemarle is looking for farmers in the region that would like to donate edible surpluses of produce. The top four crops the bank is looking for are white and red potatoes, apples and cabbage, Soucy said.

Though the bank is positive the new program will have a big impact on the hungry in the region, it is taking it slow, for now, in order to gauge the volume of produce the bank’s pantries can handle, Soucy said.

“We’re taking baby steps here,” Soucy said. “Two hundred nineteen million pounds is a lot, and we need to be able to distribute this in a responsible way. As a food bank association, we want to see what our pantries can handle and their ability to distribute it.”

Pamlico Shores Produce is located at 14166 U.S. Highway 264, Swan Quarter. Swan Quarter Volunteer Fire Department is located at 25 Oyster Creek Road in Swan Quarter. To donate produce, contact Carolyn Anderson, food resource coordinator at Food Bank of the Albemarle, at 252-335-4035, ext. 114.