Every other week on NHPR, we like to put a spotlight on people and places doing interesting things around the state, on Give Back NH.
Find out more about all that the New Hampshire Food Bank has to offer here.
This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.
As the only food bank in the state, the New Hampshire Food Bank works to ensure that all Granite Staters have access to the food and resources they need to thrive, with the ultimate goal of eradicating hunger in New Hampshire.
They're our focus this week on Give Back New Hampshire.
In early November 2025, I was able to take a tour of the Food Bank's warehouse in Manchester, which houses their offices, food storage and their full service kitchen. Inside, I saw pallets full of food, freezers full of fresh fruits, vegetables and proteins, along with the shelves stacked and ready for folks from local pantries around the state to come and pick up food for their communities.
Elsy Cipriani, executive director of the New Hampshire Food Bank, says it's those pantries, along with support from other agencies that make all the New Hampshire Food Bank is able to do possible.
Elsy Cipriani: Everything that we do has a ripple effect, but everything that we do cannot be done without the help of others. What we do is just part of the safety net that we are providing to neighbors in New Hampshire. We work together with emergency shelters, with soup kitchens, with emergency programs to make sure that what we do is part of something bigger, which is helping people to come out of poverty.
One of those programs that relies on the collaboration of others is the Fresh Rescue Program, where the Food Bank works with supermarkets across the state to collect or allow partner agencies to recover fresh meat and poultry that would otherwise be disposed of.
Hudson Wells, Fresh Rescue coordinator at the Food Bank, says that in addition to helping those in need, the Fresh Rescue program also helps to combat another issue - food waste.
Hudson Wells: I have a real soft spot for food insecurity and for food waste, and when this role presented the idea that it's going to help fix both of those problems at once by eliminating food waste and giving it to others and dealing with food insecurity, my heart just kind of was like, whew!
The Food Bank supplies millions of pounds of food annually to more than 400 partner agencies across all ten of New Hampshire's counties. Some of that food comes from the industrial kitchen at the food bank.
Stacie Merrifield, director of culinary and nutrition programs at the Food Bank, says that the Fresh Rescue program is vital to the output of food from the kitchen.
Stacie Merrifield: We're producing 4,500 to 6,500 meals every single week. The way that we're achieving it is primarily from Fresh Rescue and donated food from Hannaford coming through there.
The New Hampshire Food Bank also features a Culinary Job Training Program.
Stacie Merrifield: The purpose of this program is to try to get to the root cause of hunger. So a program like this is an attempt to give people skills to hopefully get a job, or maybe get a higher paying job. It's a crash course in culinary. It's completely free. Actually, we pay them $350. They can use that however they'd like, we find they typically use it for transportation. But yeah, it's eight weeks and we can cater it to the individual in front of us.
In fact, the head chef in the Food Bank's kitchen, Carlos Rodriguez, is a graduate of the very same Culinary Job Training Program.
Carlos Rodriguez: She gave me the opportunity to get a job in here because they can see what I can do. And she likes what I do. And here I am to help the community, give back to the community. And I love it. You know, it feels it feels nice to know that you're helping a lot of people. There is a need And it made me proud of myself doing what I do.
Looking ahead to the future, Elsy says that one of the main areas the Food Bank aims to focus improvement on, based on feedback from partner agencies across the state after conducting a listening tour over the summer, is distribution.
Elsy Cipriani: We already took a big step opening a warehouse in the North Country. But this is just the beginning. There are some areas in New Hampshire that still are struggling with food distribution, like the western part of the state.
So we are working right now on some partnerships with some of the agencies in this area to see how we can decentralize the distribution, the food distribution for New Hampshire Food Bank, and make sure that more and more agencies and community members have easier access to our food. We are doing great, and we are still able to cover the whole state, but we can do better.
