Food Bank Led Federal Food Disbursement and Pantry Sourced Food Quality Over Time During COVID-19 Pandemic in Minnesota

Federally funded Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) aims to improve nutrition equity through hunger relief setting. However, little is known about TEFAP disbursement method (choice, modified choice, and no choice) to pantries or the quality received by pantries. Food inventory data from 239 pantries in 2020 were used to assess the association between TEFAP quality and type of disbursement methods longitudinally. While no significant differences were observed in quality across disbursement types and months. Our study suggests there are tradeoffs across different methods. TEFAP for the most part is a healthy food source that should be maximized by food pantries.Copyright © 2023 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.

The development of Taiwanese non-profit food banks during the world pandemic: Crisis and opportunities

The world has been affected badly by Covid-19 in 2020. Taiwan, fortunately, has not been that badly affected by the virus. However, there are questions surrounding how the pandemic has impacted Taiwanese food banks so far and whether Taiwanese food banks have experienced any crisis caused by the pandemic or gained momentum owing to the relatively safer circumstances. Based on practices, interviews, and questionnaires, this research aims to answer them. The results show most food banks were more or less impacted by the coronavirus between February and early May. The majority of food banks reported an increase in the recipients of their help and did not report a shortage of volunteers. In 2020, more food banks have been established and many existing food banks have expanded their services. Food Banking is gaining popularity and recognition in Taiwan. © 2023 Author(s).

Humanitarian supply chains and innovation: a focus on US food banks

Purpose: To effectively meet their social objectives, humanitarian organizations need to be more innovative and find novel ways to stay competitive. Yet there has been limited focus on innovation by humanitarian organizations. Part of the issue is the lack of new practices and novel approaches that can be used as benchmarks. This study focuses on food banks, a critical hub for the delivery of food in humanitarian supply chains and where the use of innovation seems to be more reported on. Design/methodology/approach: Focusing on resource scarcity, a commonly referenced constraint by humanitarian organizations, the authors study how food and fund scarcity (versus abundance) influence the innovation efforts of twelve food banks in the United States. This study observes variations in behavior before and during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Findings: The authors find that food banks operating in high resource scarcity (food-scarce and fund-scarce) settings focus on process innovations. Food banks operating in low resource scarcity (food-abundant and fund-abundant) settings focus on product innovations. Food banks operating in food-abundant and fund-scarce settings focus on marketing innovations. Food banks operating in food-scarce and fund-abundant settings show the most extensive focus on innovation by relying on imitative innovations. The innovation focus for most food banks switches to process innovation during the COVID pandemic. Originality/value: The study breaks down resource scarcity specific to food banks by differentiating food and funds, a novel approach to studying scarcity. Findings are novel as they suggest that operating context has a highly differentiating effect on what food banks focus on in terms of innovation. Operating context can lead to focus on process, product, imitative of market-related innovations. Finally, the study is novel because it explores how change in the environmental context due to disruptions can drastically modify the innovation focus of food banks. © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited.

Food (in)security in a Nordic Welfare State: The Impact of COVID-19 on the Activities of Oslo’s Food Bank

This chapter explores the impact of COVID-19 on metropolitan food redistribution chains in a Nordic welfare state by analyzing the case of Oslo’s Food Bank. It assesses how alternative redistribution schemes can support the welfare state or reach out to vulnerable groups without sufficient assistance. The study finds that Oslo’s Food Bank - Matsentralen Oslo - experienced an increase in food demand and new types of recipients. However, despite the COVID-related social challenges, it was able to redistribute more food in 2020 and 2021 compared to 2019 thanks to the combination of new strategies, new administrative and control systems, new internal structures, as well as the establishment of new partnerships. The increased food demand and the availability of surplus food combined with the food bank's capacity to adapt to sudden changes suggest that the provision of food security requires the presence of dedicated institutions with the flexibility to make quick adjustments and connect supply and demand. The study shows that food banks complement the welfare state in bringing social services and additionally reduce food waste. They thus combine socio-economic and environmental services, which are beyond the scope of public financial transfers. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Detecting food pantry clients' needs post-COVID-19: A project design for future service-learning courses

Previously, we partnered with food banks to design a service-learning course in our Industrial Distribution Program to help food pantries deliver food and solve their operational problems. However, students complained that we did not provide well-defined problems for students to solve in this course. They suggested that we provide well-designed processes, activities, and pre-designed tools so that they can save much time and focus on better serving the clients. For this purpose, we participated in a Houston Food Bank (HFB) Needs Assessment project. Apart from helping the HFB to determine the needs of the clients and HFB post-COVID-19, this project was also designed to provide a roadmap for future service-learning courses to follow. This project was conducted in the summer of 2021. The project team consisted of members from Industrial Distribution Program and HFB. To design the project, we discussed the issues, identified agencies and clients, decided on data collection methods, formulated focus group questions, and chose survey instruments. We implemented the data collection and analyzed the data, followed by writing a report and presenting the results. In addition to providing a guideline for food banks and pantries to distribute food, this project can be used to design better service-learning courses in Industrial Distribution Program that can enhance community impact. The next step is that in the fall semester of 2021, we launched another food insecurity service-learning course that followed our project design and execution to avoid the aforementioned issues, allowing food agencies and students to better serve the communities. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2022

Open social innovation for surplus food recovery and aid during COVID-19 crisis: the case of Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus

Purpose>The study analyses the role that open social innovation (OSI) perspective played for Fondazione Banco Alimentare Onlus (FBAO), a food bank in Italy, in responding to the COVID-19 crisis. It answers the following research question: how does a crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, stimulate the adoption of OSI practices to revamp the activities of FBAO and facilitate appropriate solutions to carry out its social mission?Design/methodology/approach>This study employs a qualitative approach. It is based on a single case study.Findings>The study shows how COVID-19 has stimulated the adoption of OSI practices to continue to meet the social mission, creating innovative projects or finding new ways to do the same things.Research limitations/implications>The study is based on a single case study.Practical implications>The paper contributes insights into the literature on OSI, examining how inbound and outbound OSI mechanisms can modify business models and increase the adaptation capacity of food banks and their effectiveness. In addition, it provides a rich context in which the social value drivers provided by OSI are studied.Originality/value>This paper applies the OSI to a food bank to evaluate what this action mode produces for the food bank during a health crisis. Specifically, this is the first paper that studies the COVID-19 crisis response of a food bank from the OSI perspective, focusing on the inbound and outbound OSI processes that characterized the entire network of relationships.

The Social Practices of Food Bank Volunteer Work

The on-going rise in demand experienced by voluntary and community organisations (VCOs) providing emergency food aid has been described as a sign of a social and public health crisis in the UK (Loopstra, 2018;Lambie-Mumford, 2019), compounded since 2020 by the impact of (and responses to) Covid 19 (Power et al., 2020). In this article we adopted a social practice approach to understanding the work of food bank volunteering. We identify how 'helping others', 'deploying coping strategies' and 'creating atmospheres' are key specific (and connected) forms of shared social practice. Further, these practices are sometimes suffused by faith-based practice. The analysis offers insights into how such spaces of care and encounter (Williams et al., 2016;Cloke et al., 2017) function, considers the implications for these distinctive organisational forms (the growth of which has been subject to justified critique) and suggests avenues for future research.

"The reality is that on Universal Credit I cannot provide the recommended amount of fresh fruit and vegetables per day for my children": Moving from a behavioural to a systemic understanding of food practices [version 1; peer review: 2 approved].

Background: Evidence suggests that people living in poverty often experience inadequate nutrition with short and long-term health consequences. Whilst the diets of low-income households have been subject to scrutiny, there is limited evidence in the UK on the diet quality and food practices of households reporting food insecurity and food bank use. We explore lived experiences of food insecurity and underlying drivers of diet quality among low-income families, drawing upon two years of participatory research with families of primary school age children. Methods: We report on a mixed-methods study of the relationship between low income, food bank use, food practices and consumption from a survey of 612 participants, including 136 free text responses and four focus groups with 22 participants. The research followed a parallel mixed-methods design: qualitative and quantitative data were collected separately, although both were informed by participatory work. Quantitative data were analysed using binary and multinomial logistic regression modelling; qualitative data were analysed thematically. Results: Lower income households and those living with food insecurity struggle to afford a level of fruit and vegetable consumption that approaches public health guidance for maintaining a healthy diet, despite high awareness of the constituents of a healthy diet. Participants used multiple strategies to ensure as much fruit, vegetable and protein consumption as possible within financial constraints. The quantitative data suggested a relationship between higher processed food consumption and having used a food bank, independent of income and food security status. Conclusions: The findings suggest that individualised, behavioural accounts of food practices on a low-income misrepresent the reality for people living with poverty. Behavioural or educational interventions are therefore likely to be less effective in tackling food insecurity and poor nutrition among people on a low income; policies focusing on structural drivers, including poverty and geographical access to food, are needed.

Proxy longitudinal indicators of household food insecurity in the UK: [version 1;peer review: 1 approved]

Background: Rising food bank usage in the UK suggests a growing prevalence of food insecurity. However, a formalised, representative measure of food insecurity was not collected in the UK until 2019, over a decade after the initial proliferation of food bank demand. In the absence of a direct measure of food insecurity, this article identifies and summarises longitudinal proxy indicators of UK food insecurity to gain insight into the growth of insecure access to food in the 21st century. Methods: A rapid evidence synthesis of academic and grey literature (2005–present) identified candidate proxy longitudinal markers of food insecurity. These were assessed to gain insight into the prevalence of, or conditions associated with, food insecurity. Results: Food bank data clearly demonstrates increased food insecurity. However, this data reflects an unrepresentative, fractional proportion of the food insecure population without accounting for mild/moderate insecurity, or those in need not accessing provision. Economic indicators demonstrate that a period of poor overall UK growth since 2005 has disproportionately impacted the poorest households, likely increasing vulnerability and incidence of food insecurity. This vulnerability has been exacerbated by welfare reform for some households. The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically intensified vulnerabilities and food insecurity. Diet-related health outcomes suggest a reduction in diet quantity/quality. The causes of diet-related disease are complex and diverse;however, evidence of socio-economic inequalities in their incidence suggests poverty, and by extension, food insecurity, as key determinants. Conclusion: Proxy measures of food insecurity suggest a significant increase since 2005, particularly for severe food insecurity. Proxy measures are inadequate to robustly assess the prevalence of food insecurity in the UK. Failure to collect standardised, representative data at the point at which food bank usage increased significantly impairs attempts to determine the full prevalence of food insecurity, understand the causes, and identify those most at risk.

Designing and Deploying a Mobile UVC Disinfection Robot

This paper presents a mobile UVC disinfection robot designed to mitigate the threat of airborne and surface pathogens. Our system comprises a mobile robot base, a custom UVC lamp assembly, and algorithms for autonomous navigation and path planning. We present a model of UVC disinfection and dosage of UVC light delivered by the mobile robot. We also discuss challenges and prototyping decisions for rapid deployment of the robot during the COVID-19 pandemic. Experimental results summarize a long-term deployment at The Greater Boston Food Bank, where the robot delivers (nightly) UVC dosages of at least 10 mJ/cm to a 4000 ft area in under 30 minutes. These dosages are capable of neutralizing 99% of coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV-2, on surfaces and in airborne particles. Further simulations present how this mobile UVC disinfection robot may be extended to classic problems in robotic path planning and adaptive multi-robot coverage control. © 2021 IEEE.

Achieving equitable food security: How can food bank mobile pantries fill this humanitarian need

Hunger occurs in all locations around the globe, from developing to developed countries. In fact, there were over 37 million food insecure individuals (those without access to consistent nutritious food) in the United States in 2018, and this number increased in recent years due to the COVID pandemic. In many countries, food banks are used to consolidate food donations from individuals or government agencies and then provide that food to local partner agencies (such as food pantries and soup kitchens), who distribute it to food insecure individuals. As nonprofit humanitarian organizations, food banks strive to achieve geographic equity in their food distribution, so one area (or county) is not favored over others. However, food banks also want to maximize food distribution with their limited budgets. This equitable distribution versus cost balancing act is made even more challenging since food banks experience extreme variability in both the supply (donations) of food and partner agencies' capacity to deliver food to the food insecure. Our paper focuses on how mobile pantry programs, additional food bank storage capacity, and improved partner agency capacity can be utilized to address this supply and distribution capacity variability while considering food expiration times. Mobile pantry programs allow food banks to distribute food directly to the food insecure by sending their own trucks and employees to locations where food is most needed. Although all three of these approaches can be helpful, our results show that mobile pantries are a more effective approach to achieve high equity levels. This is especially true in the case of produce with relatively short expiration times. We also find that utilizing mobile pantry programs can increase equitable partner agency distribution considerably, because even small amounts of mobile pantry distribution in under-served areas allow for more equitable partner agency distribution in areas with available partner agency distribution capacity. Our research is based on data from our partner food bank, but our modeling and extensive sensitivity analysis should be applicable to many food banks with a similar collection and distribution structure.

"Too big to fail": the resilience and entrenchment of food aid through food banks in the Netherlands during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper aims to better understand the resilience and further entrenchment of food aid through food banks in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the first months of the pandemic in the Netherlands, concerns quickly rose about the number of people falling into conditions of food insecurity. Adding insult to injury, food banks reported problems in their operations. The analysis shows that after some adaptations to initial problems, food banks were largely able to continue their service. This ability was partly based on organizational flexibility. However, in order to understand the resilience of food aid through food banks, it is imperative to understand food banks as part of a system of food aid that extends beyond the organizational boundaries. This system includes a range of other actors and resources, including donors, public support and governmental backing that contributed to the resilience of the food aid system. While this embeddedness in a system as well as broad public support were essential for the resilience of food aid through food banks, both factors also indicate the further entrenchment of food banks in the understanding and practices of ensuring food security for people in poverty. Ultimately, when the root causes of a need for food aid are not addressed, a resilient system of food aid through food banks can eventually prove detrimental to societal resilience, specifically the ability to ensure dignified access to adequate food.

A trade way and a pandemic: Disruption and resilience in the food bank supply chain

Supply chain turbulence has become the new normal – and understanding supply chain resilience is essential for business-to-business firms. Dynamic capabilities theory provides the foundation for examining three literature gaps on supply chain resilience: resource reconfiguration during high impact disruptions;resilience across multiple supply chain levels;and resilience when government is involved. The food bank supply chain is examined during the turbulence of 2018–2020 from the U.S.-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic. Due to the trade war, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) shifted agricultural commodities intended for export to food banks, creating scale and scope supply shocks, and this was followed by food demand and supply shocks from the pandemic. In-depth interviews were conducted with supply chain members, from farmers to processing firms to food banks. Qualitative analysis provides detailed perspectives on three stages of supply chain resilience: anticipating, adapting and responding, and recovery and learning. The trade war responses built resilience during the pandemic by leveraging dynamic capabilities and frugal innovation, and by building social capital and public/private partnerships. From the specific insights for food banks emerged broader insights for business-to-business firms, in the form of twelve propositions for building supply chain resilience to high impact disruptions. © 2022

European food banks and COVID-19: Resilience and innovation in times of crisis.

This paper examines the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the functioning of European food banks and how resilient European food banks were in coping with the pandemic in 2020. We apply a multiple case study to assess how the first year of the pandemic affected European food banks' operations and the amount of redistributed food. We further investigate innovation practices that have been developed to cope with the new situation, hoping to draw lessons for imminent future waves of the pandemic and other social crises. Our study finds that, compared to 2019, in 2020 food banks were able to redistribute a significantly higher amount of food despite numerous social restrictions and other challenges associated with the pandemic. To explain this, we delve into the organizational innovations implemented by the studied food banks and find that the introduction of new strategies and new internal structures, as well as the establishment of new types of external network relations with other firms and/or public organizations, proved to be particularly important, enabling food banks to respond quickly and effectively to the new emergency. The study thus highlights the role of food banks in food redistribution and food waste reduction in times of crisis.

Changes in accessibility to emergency and community food services during COVID-19 and implications for low income populations in Hamilton, Ontario.

In this paper we analyze the changes in accessibility to emergency and community food services before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in the City of Hamilton, Ontario. Many of these food services are the last line of support for households facing food insecurity; as such, their relevance cannot be ignored in the midst of the economic upheaval caused by the pandemic. Our analysis is based on the application of balanced floating catchment areas and concentrates on households with lower incomes (

Food support provision in COVID-19 times: a mixed method study based in Greater Manchester.

COVID-19 has brought to light the severity of economic inequalities by testing the capacity of the poorest families to make ends meet. Food insecurity has in fact soared all over the UK, with many people forced to rely on food support providers to not go hungry. This paper uses a unique dataset on 55 food support organizations active in Greater Manchester during the first COVID-19 wave, and 41 semi-structured interviews with food aid spokespersons and stakeholders, to shed light on what they overcame, the complications and drawbacks of the food emergency response plan put in place. The results indicate that food aid organizations that remained open were surprisingly effective despite the growth in user demand and the decrease in volunteers. However, the necessity to maintain a timely supply food at all costs came with important drawbacks. The lockdown measures that followed COVID-19 not only affected the financial stability and management of the organizations, and the availability of food, but undermined the ways in which food support providers used to operate. Owing to physical distancing measures and to the increasing numbers of users, more or less intangible forms of support such as financial advice, empathic listening and human warmth were partially lost, probably when they were needed more than ever. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10460-021-10212-2.

Feeding the food insecure in Britain: learning from the 2020 COVID-19 crisis.

The lockdown in Britain has rendered a large proportion of the population economically vulnerable and has at least quadrupled demand for emergency food relief. This paper looks critically at response to the crisis from the government and the voluntary sector with respect to provision of emergency food. In doing so, it has exposed gaps in understanding of the vagaries of the food supply for certain population groups and systemic weaknesses in the current system of emergency food aid. We make recommendations for healthier governmental capacity to react to a food security crisis, better relationships between the government and the voluntary sector, and further research into the dietary constraints of the precariate. Importantly, the social system needs to be responsive to short-term changes in people's income if people are not to fall into food insecurity.