Creating a nutrition policy is one thing; keeping it going is another.
One of the first steps the Community Food Bank of New Jersey took to build its nutrition policy was to convene meetings with team members from every single department of the food bank. Quarterly meetings with a core group of stakeholders ensued, as did various subcommittee meetings. To this day – more than two years after the policy was introduced – the nutrition team continues to meet with the purchasing team every other week.
It may be no surprise that nutrition policies are at risk of withering without across-the-board buy-in and regular nurturing. The Community Food Bank of NJ has worked to guard against that hazard, helping to keep its nutrition policy not just relevant, but strategically important.
The process began with executive leadership making a nutrition policy part of the food bank’s strategic plan. “That was really important because we knew as an entire organization that this was the direction we were going,” said Erin Long, Manager of Community Health and Nutrition.
That commitment set the stage for the meetings with every department, even the ones where a connection to nutrition might not be obvious. Finance’s link to nutrition is not clear-cut, for example, but such departments may be concerned about how purchases of nutritious food could impact the budget. The development department might wonder how the policy would impact relationships with donors. Given such concerns, Long noted, “There wasn’t a department that was left out.”
The nutrition team and the food-sourcing team have developed an especially strong bond, since food purchasing ultimately gives shape to the nutrition policy. Through large, information-sharing sessions, each team told the other all about their jobs, laying the groundwork for a greater understanding of how to jointly meet nutrition goals. Knowing that food purchasing decisions happen rapidly and all of the time, the teams decided to meet every two weeks to ensure greater consistency in purchasing.
The issues they discuss are both large and small. “We can talk about one item or we can talk about the truckloads that come in,” Long said. Generally, they discuss food-item swaps that can be made to ensure nutritional guidelines are being met.
Recently, the teams came up with a plan to distribute fewer high-sodium canned meals. Simply moving to the low-sodium version of the meals was too expensive. Instead, the purchasing team swapped in yogurt, after hearing from the nutrition team that it could be nutritious and was highly desired by clients. A local vendor is supplying the yogurt, which keeps transportation costs down and makes it more affordable. “It’s going very, very well,” said Jasmine Sherod, Assistant Director of Procurement at Community Food Bank of NJ.
Two years in, the nutrition policy is making a difference. Before putting the policy in place, the food bank put a powerhouse team of interns onto the task of ranking the food bank’s inventory using historical data from 2018 through 2023. The project, which took almost a year, found that about 10% of purchased inventory consisted of foods in the “choose rarely” category, which was “a little too high for our liking,” Long said. That knowledge helped the team set a goal of having only 5% of purchased items in the choose rarely category.
The team reached its choose-rarely goal for purchased food within a year, and has since achieved the benchmark with donated food as well, since a lot of it comes directly from farms. Importantly, the ongoing communication between the nutrition and purchasing teams means there are fewer swings upward or downward in the rankings. “It’s staying very consistent because of all of our touch points with food sourcing and keeping it a priority as an organization,” Long said.
By now, the nutrition policy has become socialized throughout the food bank. Every month, the nutrition team issues an update to the entire organization on current nutrition standings, as well as any major wins or key takeaways. The rankings of individual items are also available to agency partners when they order their food. “We’re giving them the information to be more educated about what we have and how they want to order,” Long said.
Sherod underscored the importance of keeping the lines of communication open between departments. “Without that cross functional collaboration, it’s not going to be as successful as you would think,” she said, adding, “I absolutely love the nutrition policy. It definitely helps us in purchasing to make sure that we are being held accountable, and that we are sourcing the best foods possible for our neighbors.” – Chris Costanzo
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