Who We Are
The Southeast Regional Cooperative is a member-led 501 c 3, Type I Supporting Organization comprised of Feeding America food banks in 7 southeastern states. It seeks to provide fresh produce to food banks in the Southeast region, focusing on quality and variety, helping them exceed volume goals. The SERC is designed to aggregate surplus produce from around the southeast region and across the country and match that with demand of our member food banks. The mission of the program is to facilitate donations and to purchase produce at the lowest possible cost (PPO) while providing a consistent level of demand to growers, distributors, and other supply chain participants resulting in a consistent supply of produce to our members.
The cooperative’s seeks to reduce the average cost of acquisition for fresh produce while improving variety and freshness of produce, thereby extending the purchasing power of supported food banks. The SERC negotiates and procures excess donated produce (PPO), and freight costs for participating food banks. We manage a contracted mixing facility where we aggregate straight commodity truckloads and cross-dock the produce to create mixed commodity truckloads. We then distribute these mixed produce truckloads to our members.
The Southeast Regional Cooperative is governed by a Board of Directors made up of leadership from supported food banks, ensuring that customer interests are served in an equitable fashion. Equity and transparency are fundamental guiding principles for SERC governance and operations.
Watch this developing web site for new and exciting information from the Southeast Regional Cooperative.