Struggle often breeds innovation, a concept that Jeremy Cooley, CEO of Tangelo, an online e-commerce platform, understands.
Cooley made it his mission to highlight the importance of nutritious food after 2017, when his father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and given six months to live. After proper nutrition helped extend his father’s life another two years, Tangelo was born, both to honor his father’s memory and further the vision of educating people on nutrition and providing healthy food for everyone.
Tangelo works with nonprofits and other organizations, like universities and clinics, to improve the accessibility and distribution of food benefits. It helps organizations create packages of food benefits that people can then access through the Tangelo app, such as the ability to spend SNAP dollars online, and then request free delivery.
By creating attractive food benefit packages, organizations can help boost participation in SNAP, which sometimes suffers due to bulky procedures and lack of information. In effect, Tangelo acts as a middleman, providing a digital platform where people can find and access easy-to-use SNAP benefits.
Hunger Free America, a domestic non-profit group focused on ending hunger through policies and programs, last month announced a historic collaboration with Tangelo. Under this collaboration, Tangelo will provide New York customers with “healthy grocery boxes” that will include fresh produce, meal kits, and more. Customers will also get the “Tangelo Nutrition Incentive,” where if low-income families spend $100 on healthy food, they will get an additional $30 in free healthy food.
The Bronx borough will be the focal point of this collaboration as it continues to be one of the counties most affected by food insecurity – one in four of its residents experiences food insecurity in their households. Federal data analyzed by Hunger Free America shows that 35.8% of all children and 18% of working adults suffer this fate in the borough.
In addition, publicly available data show that 25% of New York City residents who are eligible for SNAP do not take advantage of it. The Tangelo-Hunger Free America partnership will help residents of New York who have been struggling to access healthy and culturally appropriate food, as well as overcome difficulties accessing SNAP benefits.
“During the pandemic, I spoke to a lot of entities and they [Tangelo] seemed to have the clearest plan and understanding of what was required by USDA to do this,” said Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, which is receiving financial help from private donors and government grants to offer the Tangelo services.
Berg also mentioned plans to expand this collaboration to other states besides New York and to jointly apply for government funds. Such collaborations are aimed at tackling two issues that currently exist: the issue of people not being able to access SNAP funds and the issue of food companies accepting SNAP funds.
Since Covid-19 struck, the need for platforms like Tangelo has become increasingly noticeable. Pre-pandemic, 35 million people were living in food-insecure households – the lowest food insecurity rate in 20 years, according to Feeding America. The pandemic, however, has adversely affected improvements made over the past decade. At the same time, food banks are struggling to keep up due to supply chain issues and inflation.
The collaborative efforts showcased by Tangelo offer the possibility of optimizing a government resource.
According to Berg, “The feedback from the company and the feedback from some members of the community have been extraordinarily positive.” – Aryan Rai
Aryan Rai is a reporter for Food Bank News and a graduate student at Boston University.
CAPTION ABOVE: Joel Berg, CEO of Hunger Free America, at an event announcing the partnership between his organization and Tangelo. Photo courtesy of Hunger Free America.
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