The Detroit Food Zoo was developed in 2016 as a community garden with a primary goal of providing garden based nutrition education to youth and Gleaners’ partner agencies. By demonstrating various ways to grow healthy foods, the Food Zoo is able to showcase how growing your own food can be an empowering tool to reducing food insecurity and hunger. All produce harvested in the Food Zoo is made available in the free aisle for agencies and offered as educational tastings to youth volunteers.  During the 2018 season, the Detroit Food Zoo grew over 25 different crops and harvested over 1,000lbs of produce for our agency partners including items that are not as commonly available to agencies such as fresh garlic, basil and parsley; different greens such as kale, Swiss chard, and arugula; or unique varieties of tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant.