School Lunch Share Tables Fight Food Waste and Hunger

Since its 2015 Expo, Milan has continued to foster a number of unique initiatives to combat food waste, promote healthy and sustainable food systems, and ensure that its people never go hungry. Through projects such as collecting unsold food at the end of market day for distribution in soup kitchens, using apps to redirect food waste, implementing new laws to ease the process of food donation, as well as fostering collaboration between cities, Milan is leading the efforts to prioritize food on the New Urban Agenda.

Community leaders are working together to address the issue of food insecurity in Mansfield, caused not just by lack of access to grocery stores and fresh food sources, but also often by unemployment, high housing costs, low wages, poverty, and health care costs. The North End Local Foods Initiative is installing food gardens in these communities, creating access to fresh produce, to educational opportunities, recreational activity and more.

The ability of community gardens to supply healthy food to those who might not have their basic needs met has grown in importance as coronavirus continues to spread across the United States. For example, the New Roots community gardening initiative in Salt Lake City helps nearly 150 refugee families raise food on plots, and about 86 percent of the gardeners report saving an average of $30 a week by growing their own food. However, the future of this program, and others around the country in New York City, Seattle, and Minneapolis, are uncertain as they face budget cuts from cities amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

New Jersey legislators are introducing a series of actions that can help drastically reduce food waste and ensure more food is provided to those going hungry. The varied measures include provisions for farms where post-harvest produce is collected and donated, as well as clarifications on food labeling to help prevent confusion about expiry dates.

In low-income districts, the school nurse is often a family’s first health care provider, and the role at places like Wildwood High School and Glenwood Avenue School has expanded to provide everything from warm coats and food donations for children and their families living in hunger.

The “one cow per poor family” initiative in Rwanda seeks to increase household income and fight malnutrition by giving families a cow to raise. Once the cow gives birth, the calf is given to another family to raise, keeping the process going. Since the program started in 2006, a total of 341,065 cows have been distributed and residents say it has improved their livelihoods.

The app Too Good to Go helps restaurants and other shops prevent food waste by selling their extra food to people for a cheaper price. So far, more than 700,000 people in the United States have downloaded the app and the company estimates that, on average, each meal sold halts 2.2 pounds of food from ending up in the garbage, which ends up reducing carbon emissions. There are challenges to widespread implementation, but the app has launched in New York City, Boston, San Francisco, and Seattle.

The Hannaford supermarket chain has achieved their goal of creating zero food waste. Over the past year, they diverted 65 million pounds of unsellable products to food banks, de-packing facilities, and anaerobic digestion facilities where it’s converted to energy. The grocery store is also making adjustments to how it purchases and sources food and how it’s displayed with the hopes of extending the food’s shelf life.

The Ajo Center for Sustainable Agriculture has helped the town of Ajo in Arizona distribute affordable and nutrient-dense food to the community after the coronavirus pandemic created a significant financial strain on many families. Additional support has come from the town's participation in the Environmental Protection Agency's program Local Food, Local Places which "provides technical support and expertise to help towns leverage food systems to boost economic development."

An organization named FEAST! in London offers a high-quality meal once a week in a homeless shelter using excess food from supermarkets. Not only does this tackle the issue of food waste, but it also aims to fill in the nutritional gaps left in the diets of those who are homeless and provides some dignity in a conversation over a community meal. The program has been running since 2015, and both the volunteers and recipients testify to the impact it has had on their lives.