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QuickTake:
Rick Wright, the late Market of Choice CEO, was a founding trustee of Food for Lane County, and the business, among other institutions such the University of Oregon, continues to donate hundreds of thousands of pounds of food each year.
Dewey Weddington, the voluble, silver-haired vice president of marketing at Market of Choice was with his boss, Rick Wright, a few days before the CEO of this home-grown, family-owned company, died at home in Eugene this past summer.
Wright was 62. His father founded the company in 1979 when Rick was 16. He grew up in the business, which today is the largest independent, family-owned grocer in the state. Both father and son were committed to, as the senior Wright was quoted as saying, “utilizing the path we have to help.”
Weddington translates this into simpler language.
“We know food. We are part of the community. We have an obligation.”
In the final conversation Weddington had with his boss, Wright talked about those in the community who were hungry.
“We have so much here,” Weddington remembers Wright telling him. “I wish we could totally solve this. I wish we could meet all the needs.”
Weddington tells this story with a catch in his voice. “Then Rick said to me, ‘We need to do everything we can. And then we need to do more.’”
Market of Choice, with four stores in Eugene, is one of Food for Lane County’s most significant business donors. Last year, area stores contributed almost 325,000 pounds of food (270,000 meal equivalents) through the Food Rescue Express program, a donation system for in-house prepared food.
Market of Choice sandwiches and wraps, prepared entrees, and a wide variety of salads, from classic potato to keto kale to soba noodle — food left over at the end of the day, perhaps because of overstocking or just the whims of shoppers that day — are picked up most every day by Food for Lane County trucks and delivered to its warehouse.
There, a team of volunteers repackages it in single-serving or family-sized containers to be distributed through food pantries, shelters and meal sites.
The other major donor to Food Rescue Express is the University of Oregon, which donates unused food prepared in the six main campus kitchens that serve students on meal plans. The truck stops by all the kitchens six days a week. Rescued prepared food also comes from Matthew Knight Arena and Autzen Stadium.
Wright was what in the tech world is known as an “early adopter,” maybe even a “beta tester.”
A founding trustee of Food for Lane County, he was instrumental in establishing a vibrant and ongoing community partnership, which includes not only Food Rescue Express but also the scan-a-coupon program that allows shoppers to make cash donations at the check-out register. The stores also participate (as do 30 other grocers in the county) in a nationwide program called Fresh Alliance, for the donation of produce, frozen foods and shelf-stable items.
“Listen,” Weddington says. “We’re family-owned, and we run a local company. We care about our neighbors. They are our neighbors.”
