To achieve its goal of ending food insecurity in Maine, Good Shepherd Food Bank is enlisting the help of broccoli. The food bank, Maine’s largest, is starting a produce-processing company called Harvesting Good that will offer frozen produce year round to retail and institutional customers. The goal of the company…
Food Bank News
Food banking may never be the same again. After more than a year of being in crisis mode, food banks are settling into a new normal — meeting still-elevated need, but doing it more effectively than ever before thanks to 14 months of intense, pandemic-pressurized learning. Among the Covid-inspired innovations…
A service that lets home gardeners donate their excess produce to hunger relief organizations has expanded from 23 zip codes in 2019, to 985 zip codes currently. A mobile version of the service, which was introduced last year and helps coordinate transportation of the donated produce, helped propel that expansion.…
Over the past year or so, a growing number of food banks have experimented with opening one or two of their own food pantries as a way of expanding capacity. It’s a strategy that Long Island Cares has been pursuing with success for more than a decade. This month, the…
Houston Food Bank is one of the largest food banks in the United States, distributing more than 800,000 pounds of food per day. Residents of 18 counties depend on Houston Food Bank and when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, applications for services soared. From March 2020 to March 2021, the Houston…
Just as grocery stores are making it possible for Americans to do more of their shopping online through apps like Instacart and FreshDirect, so too are food pantries embracing digital choice. While some pantries had begun experimenting with online ordering for clients before Covid-19, others made the switch as a way…
It’s fair to say that food banks loved the fresh produce they received from the Farmers to Families Food Box program, but they did not like the way it was distributed. As that program comes to a close, the new program set to take its place starting in May hits…
Although Good Shepherd Food Bank has long served diverse communities across Maine, it wasn’t until Covid-19 hit that the organization realized how much variety there was in the food its clients wanted – and how little of that variety it provided. The problem became apparent when fears about how the…
Add two more food banks to the list of those opening their own model food pantries. Care and Share Food Bank for Southern Colorado and East Texas Food Bank both recently opened distribution outlets that incorporate food-pantry best practices. The pantries operate in a supermarket style, allowing clients to pick…