January 12, 2007
Americans Put Food to Good Use
By Bernice Hurst, Managing Director, Fine Food Network
Americans are far better at putting food to good use than are the British. My Google News alert for food has almost daily stories about food banks and the people who both supply them and those who benefit from them.
Grocery stores (and food manufacturers) in the U.S. are big supporters of America’s Second Harvest, helping the organization distribute more than two billion pounds of food to millions of hungry people. (Click here for a list of food partners that have supported Second Harvest for seven or more years check out.)
There are few, if any, equivalent food banks in the U.K. Damaged packages and packaged goods reaching their best before date are sold at a reduced price. Fresh food is, all too often, thrown away. For a country that has been encouraging us to recycle every which way, we are more than a little bit wasteful with products that cannot be put back on sale day after day. We like our fresh food fresh. No surprise there. But what is a surprise is how little effort we make to help people without easy access to what the more affluent don’t get around to buying.
Tristram Stuart of The Guardian has tracked down a charity, Fareshare, which tries to get usable food from supermarkets to those who need but cannot afford it. The group collects food and delivers it to charities in Britain that feed the hungry. Currently, about 4,000 tons of food is redistributed every year. If the U.K. were to match the U.S. on a per capita basis, there would be 50,000 tons distributed each year.
It isn’t as if there aren’t people who would appreciate it, even enjoy it. Nor is it a matter of everything that’s on display being sold out. It does seem to be more a matter of recognition, both that there is a problem and that there are good solutions. There are many examples of good practice from which we could learn; offering suggestions and pointing fellow retailers in the right direction could be a valuable contribution to reducing both hunger and wastage.
Discussion Question: What advice would you offer to British people – individuals and retailers – who would like to see unsold but good food directed to those in need?
Sadly, and to my shame and embarrassment, far too much food is wasted in the U.K. Traveling around the U.S. these past few weeks, I have become aware of retailers who take packaged goods approaching their best before date and donate them to food banks rather than reducing the price for their regular customers as a British supermarket would. At Chino’s Farm in California on Sunday, I asked the owner what would happen to the baskets full of freshly picked salad leaves and vegetables that were left at the end of the day. She replied that they would be taken to a nearby church for distribution. More baskets of leaves and vegetables would be picked for sale the next morning. Nothing that was in good condition was discarded; everything not sold would be donated and probably much appreciated.
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This will take some time to solve in the U.K. because it represents a series of interrelated attitudes and practices, and any solutions need to include tangible business benefits if they’re going to work on a larger scale.
One idea would be to determine if there is any positive public sentiment that could benefit companies that participate in these types of programs and then try to find a few progressive companies who are most likely to build these positives into their brand images.
At the same time you’re working proactively, it’ll be important to recognize that at least some — if not most — of the hesitancy probably traces to a concern about a potential negative impact on business reputation. Most companies will need some help working through this issue.
Bottom line, however, it sounds like there may well be a better solution. After all, waste is never good.
Philanthropy is cultural. We don’t have as many Oxfam-like stores in the U.S. as you’d find in the U.K. Our approach to collective social welfare is also much different. Should food go to waste anywhere? Obviously not. But, making sure that doesn’t happen isn’t a matter of just waving a magic wand. The solution has to make sense for the communities of both donors and recipients. I’m afraid it’s up to the British to engineer a workable approach to food donation in England. If you think about it, we have a long way to go in this country. Every day, hundreds of tons of food are dumped as garbage in this country and every day hundreds of thousands of Americans go to bed undernourished; malnourished; and just plain hungry. Maybe we should see if we can design a system that works more broadly here before we start offering advice to the rest of the world.
Restaurants, groceries, and caterers could still do a lot more to donate leftovers. It would be neat if every food business could display a sticker saying “We donate our leftovers to X.” It’s not just an appeal to the “greens,” it’s also an appeal to the charitably-inclined. How can you lose with a combination of recycling and philanthropy?
Food bank donations started in the U.S because a few retailers showed it could be done successfully. There was great pressure put on retailers from organizations like the Community for Creative Non-Violence in Washington D.C. And, yes, the liability was removed and there are tax benefits. Standards clearly state what can be donated and what cannot.
These donations significantly benefit local food banks and the communities they serve. Without this structure, many more people would go hungry each day.
A similar program could be developed for the U.K. with leadership from retailers, manufacturers and the community. It would have to consider cultural differences, of course, but it could be done.
There needs to be a lot of community involvement and integration. Stores and restaurants can easily do their part, however they may not have the where-with-all to do everything. They have to pay their employees and they may only be able to do their “end” — i.e. they can collect the available food in their store/restaurant/business, but then volunteer organisations from the community may need to take over to retrieve the materials FROM the business and then distribute it.
I have seen combined actions such as these that work well and everyone benefits — help to those who need it — a sense of pride and accomplishment in the volunteers for a job well done — benefits to the business in good will and support for their (much appreciated) contribution and help.
The government can get involved easily too — reimbursement of only a SMALL amount in tax rebate or deduction can be very cost effective and productive and make it much more appealing for a business to become involved. This is also much less expensive than the government attempting to do a similar job — that would be so costly it would only be a poor use of funds.
This sounds like a completely untapped source of ideas for promotions and publicity for every organization that’s even remotely related to the food industry — as well as educational and service projects for schools and religious organizations.
Some promotional ideas could also tie the two together by supporting educational and charitable organizations.
Some promotions could be small and local: a given restaurant announces it’s sponsoring a given organization — maybe a local chapter of Fairshare, or an Oxfam store, or a homeless shelter — and starts donating its leftovers. It could kick off the program with a Feed The Hungry night, where it opens for dinner on a night it would otherwise be closed and either hosts a benefit event or serves a special menu to the clients of the selected charity. Even on a shoestring, the restaurant could do the educational tie-in by working with the local schools to put together materials or presentations on any subject, from the problem of local poverty to how food gets from the farm to the table.
Bigger organizations could do similar programs on a bigger scale, involving more retail locations, more charitable locations and more schools. As budgets grow, so do the number and variety of communications vehicles and production values — and, of course, the expectations for measurable results in terms of brand awareness, corporate social responsibility, employee engagement and incremental sales growth.
I have to believe that much of the reason donations are pursued more aggressively by U.S. Companies would have to do with the tax laws. The options are to just throw away the goods and absorb the loss in the inflated cost of goods sold (shrink) or reduce their retail and suffer a loss in lower margins. For whatever reason, either by manufacturer constraints or retailer image concerns, the decision has been made in the U.S. to not be as aggressive on markdowns. This is probably because manufacturers don’t want their “stale” products competing with their fresh ones and retailers don’t want to deal with the labor costs necessary to handle markdowns. The retailer would rather have the product removed from the store and get full credit from the supplier. The credit is worth more than the reduced retail.
This is probably a good example of how everyone pursuing their own self interests has a negative impact on the overall supply chain. I actually believe the U.K. solution makes more sense. No one can believe that handling a product more often is more efficient. It reminds me of a quote, “There is nothing less efficient than doing that which is unnecessary as efficiently as possible.” It seems to me that sending manufacturer reps to the stores or DSD vendors collecting returns and carrying them back to the office are both inefficient ways to get rid of dated merchandise. By simply reducing the price and letting the merchandise flow through the regular supply channels it would be more efficient. People who are on a tight budget are able to shop the markdowns and the people who need welfare get it through food stamps or other subsidies.
The other perspective of this question is “Could the British have a more efficient forward supply chain?” Could it be that the reason there are so few donations is that there is so little waste? Is it possible that by better forecasting and better inventory deployment the British are able to minimize the waste?
A final perspective on this whole thing (you knew I had to get technical) is the future effect of RFID. Granted, it is a long way off — maybe even decades — but if item level RFID is in place for date sensitive items, shoppers will begin to cull the shelves themselves. On second thought, that might not be such a good idea as shoppers rummage the shelves looking for short dated product and leave a mess for store operations.
I don’t know much about tax laws and what type of deductions are given for the donation of expired or almost expired food.
I would guess that if they are able to write off the full value of the good product, Second Harvest or some other organization picks it up and distributes taking the labor issue out of it for the retailer, plus they get the benefit of some good will to boot it should be almost a no brainer decision for most companies. It sure beats tossing it in the garbage.
I don’t know however if that is a valid assumption about the tax deductibility.
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This will take some time to solve in the U.K. because it represents a series of interrelated attitudes and practices, and any solutions need to include tangible business benefits if they’re going to work on a larger scale.
One idea would be to determine if there is any positive public sentiment that could benefit companies that participate in these types of programs and then try to find a few progressive companies who are most likely to build these positives into their brand images.
At the same time you’re working proactively, it’ll be important to recognize that at least some — if not most — of the hesitancy probably traces to a concern about a potential negative impact on business reputation. Most companies will need some help working through this issue.
Bottom line, however, it sounds like there may well be a better solution. After all, waste is never good.
Philanthropy is cultural. We don’t have as many Oxfam-like stores in the U.S. as you’d find in the U.K. Our approach to collective social welfare is also much different. Should food go to waste anywhere? Obviously not. But, making sure that doesn’t happen isn’t a matter of just waving a magic wand. The solution has to make sense for the communities of both donors and recipients. I’m afraid it’s up to the British to engineer a workable approach to food donation in England. If you think about it, we have a long way to go in this country. Every day, hundreds of tons of food are dumped as garbage in this country and every day hundreds of thousands of Americans go to bed undernourished; malnourished; and just plain hungry. Maybe we should see if we can design a system that works more broadly here before we start offering advice to the rest of the world.
Restaurants, groceries, and caterers could still do a lot more to donate leftovers. It would be neat if every food business could display a sticker saying “We donate our leftovers to X.” It’s not just an appeal to the “greens,” it’s also an appeal to the charitably-inclined. How can you lose with a combination of recycling and philanthropy?
Food bank donations started in the U.S because a few retailers showed it could be done successfully. There was great pressure put on retailers from organizations like the Community for Creative Non-Violence in Washington D.C. And, yes, the liability was removed and there are tax benefits. Standards clearly state what can be donated and what cannot.
These donations significantly benefit local food banks and the communities they serve. Without this structure, many more people would go hungry each day.
A similar program could be developed for the U.K. with leadership from retailers, manufacturers and the community. It would have to consider cultural differences, of course, but it could be done.
There needs to be a lot of community involvement and integration. Stores and restaurants can easily do their part, however they may not have the where-with-all to do everything. They have to pay their employees and they may only be able to do their “end” — i.e. they can collect the available food in their store/restaurant/business, but then volunteer organisations from the community may need to take over to retrieve the materials FROM the business and then distribute it.
I have seen combined actions such as these that work well and everyone benefits — help to those who need it — a sense of pride and accomplishment in the volunteers for a job well done — benefits to the business in good will and support for their (much appreciated) contribution and help.
The government can get involved easily too — reimbursement of only a SMALL amount in tax rebate or deduction can be very cost effective and productive and make it much more appealing for a business to become involved. This is also much less expensive than the government attempting to do a similar job — that would be so costly it would only be a poor use of funds.
This sounds like a completely untapped source of ideas for promotions and publicity for every organization that’s even remotely related to the food industry — as well as educational and service projects for schools and religious organizations.
Some promotional ideas could also tie the two together by supporting educational and charitable organizations.
Some promotions could be small and local: a given restaurant announces it’s sponsoring a given organization — maybe a local chapter of Fairshare, or an Oxfam store, or a homeless shelter — and starts donating its leftovers. It could kick off the program with a Feed The Hungry night, where it opens for dinner on a night it would otherwise be closed and either hosts a benefit event or serves a special menu to the clients of the selected charity. Even on a shoestring, the restaurant could do the educational tie-in by working with the local schools to put together materials or presentations on any subject, from the problem of local poverty to how food gets from the farm to the table.
Bigger organizations could do similar programs on a bigger scale, involving more retail locations, more charitable locations and more schools. As budgets grow, so do the number and variety of communications vehicles and production values — and, of course, the expectations for measurable results in terms of brand awareness, corporate social responsibility, employee engagement and incremental sales growth.
I have to believe that much of the reason donations are pursued more aggressively by U.S. Companies would have to do with the tax laws. The options are to just throw away the goods and absorb the loss in the inflated cost of goods sold (shrink) or reduce their retail and suffer a loss in lower margins. For whatever reason, either by manufacturer constraints or retailer image concerns, the decision has been made in the U.S. to not be as aggressive on markdowns. This is probably because manufacturers don’t want their “stale” products competing with their fresh ones and retailers don’t want to deal with the labor costs necessary to handle markdowns. The retailer would rather have the product removed from the store and get full credit from the supplier. The credit is worth more than the reduced retail.
This is probably a good example of how everyone pursuing their own self interests has a negative impact on the overall supply chain. I actually believe the U.K. solution makes more sense. No one can believe that handling a product more often is more efficient. It reminds me of a quote, “There is nothing less efficient than doing that which is unnecessary as efficiently as possible.” It seems to me that sending manufacturer reps to the stores or DSD vendors collecting returns and carrying them back to the office are both inefficient ways to get rid of dated merchandise. By simply reducing the price and letting the merchandise flow through the regular supply channels it would be more efficient. People who are on a tight budget are able to shop the markdowns and the people who need welfare get it through food stamps or other subsidies.
The other perspective of this question is “Could the British have a more efficient forward supply chain?” Could it be that the reason there are so few donations is that there is so little waste? Is it possible that by better forecasting and better inventory deployment the British are able to minimize the waste?
A final perspective on this whole thing (you knew I had to get technical) is the future effect of RFID. Granted, it is a long way off — maybe even decades — but if item level RFID is in place for date sensitive items, shoppers will begin to cull the shelves themselves. On second thought, that might not be such a good idea as shoppers rummage the shelves looking for short dated product and leave a mess for store operations.
I don’t know much about tax laws and what type of deductions are given for the donation of expired or almost expired food.
I would guess that if they are able to write off the full value of the good product, Second Harvest or some other organization picks it up and distributes taking the labor issue out of it for the retailer, plus they get the benefit of some good will to boot it should be almost a no brainer decision for most companies. It sure beats tossing it in the garbage.
I don’t know however if that is a valid assumption about the tax deductibility.