ALEXANDRIA, Va. – On this week’s episode of Convenience Matters, “Addressing Food Waste With Feeding America,” NACS hosts Jeff Lenard and Carolyn Schnare talk with Shellie O’Toole, senior account manager for emerging retail for Feeding America, about how c-stores can repurpose leftovers.
More convenience stores offer fresh foodservice, which means there is more unused food at the end of the day. Feeding America can help connect retailers who have leftovers with hungry people through its network of 200 food banks, which are linked to more than 60,000 agencies such as food pantries and meal programs.
O’Toole pointed out that everyone probably knows someone who is food-insecure. “It could be a co-worker; it could be an employee; it could be the senior citizen who lives next door to you,” she said. “When we talk about the 40 million-plus people who are food-insecure, what this means is that they may have meals sporadically, they may might not know where their next meal is coming from, and many times they have to choose between diapers and food.”
Convenience retailers are making a huge difference. In 2018, Cumberland Farms, Kum & Go, Jacksons, Loaf ‘N Jug, QuikTrip, Royal Farms and Sheetz donated 75 million pounds of safe, wholesome food to Feeding America and its agency partners.
For retailers looking to get involved and donate unused food, O’Toole outlined what Feeding America provides in the way of support, including working alongside the c-store to match it up with local agencies, then expanding that out to include the entire chain. “We want the retailer to be successful with this program,” she said, “so we test and scale and test and scale” to get things right.
For more information, read “Feeding the Community” in the September 2018 issue of NACS Magazine, and click here for details about how retailers can partner with Feeding America.
Each week a new Convenience Matters episode is released. The podcast can be downloaded on iTunes, Google Play and other podcast apps, and at www.conveniencematters.com. Episodes have been downloaded by listeners more than 50,000 times in more than 80 countries.