At last week's meeting, Vince Hall, CEO of Feeding San Diego spoke to us about food insecurity (hunger) and the innovative solution Feeding San Diego has developed to use food that would be wasted to be repurposed to address the problem. Vince pointed out that the problem isn't a supply problem as it is a distribution.  He showed us why food banks aren't the answer because of the expense of getting food to the food "bank".  He pointed out supermarkets already have a food distribution system.  When food in these supermarkets reaches the outdate, the supermarket no longer can sell it and the food is discarded.  His organization has organized local efforts to rescue this food so that it can be distributed to needy persons instead of having it go to the land fill. The food is still good and healthy and this availability is an effective and efficient way to obtain food for needy people. 

 

An example of the work of repurposing food that would otherwise be wasted is the fleet of vans that Feeding San Diego supplies to charities to collect food from the numerous Starbucks locations across San Diego county.  The charities use the vans to collect pastries and other food from Starbucks stores.  Each charity actually has the keys to about 8-10 stores and they use the keys to enter the stores after midnight every day to collect food that would otherwise go into the dumpster. The food collected is used locally later on the day of collection to feed the hungry.  Check the link above to learn more about Feeding San Diego and how their solution to the problem is unique and a solution that could solve this pressing need in the United States.