KeHE, Spoiler Alert partnership bears fruit
Image credit: Daily Table
Late last month, food distribution giant KeHE announced
preliminary results of a multi-year partnership agreement with
food-waste-reduction app Spoiler Alert.
One of the largest grocery distributors in North America, the employee-owned, B
Corp-certified KeHE provides natural & organic, specialty & fresh products to
chain and independent grocery and natural food stores, and other specialty
product retailers across the continent. Boston-based Spoiler Alert helps the
grocery supply chain manage unsold inventory more effectively, increasing its
partners' performance through sales management and analytical tools, along
with a scalable, proprietary business-to-business trading platform.
In 2019, KeHE signed a multi-year agreement with Spoiler Alert to provide a
scalable solution for supporting the distributor’s future growth and excess
inventory management. For the past year, Spoiler Alert has provided KeHE with
the analytics and tools to shift more inventory out of its waste stream — and
bring access to a wide array of healthy, natural and organic products to a
portfolio of discount
retailers
around the country, which are playing a vital role in communities during the
COVID-19 pandemic.
"Our partnership with Spoiler Alert not only impacts our environment, it also
impacts communities throughout the US,” said Laura McCord, Executive
Director of Sustainability and Corporate Responsibility at KeHE. “Since the
start of our pilot program with Spoiler Alert, we were able to donate over 1.5
million meals over the last year.”
California aims to rein in food waste with expanded 'Farm to Family' initiative
Image credit: Biz Journals/Imperfect Foods
Meanwhile, in California, the #1 agricultural producer in the US, Governor
Gavin Newsom has announced an expansion of the state’s “Farm to Family” program,
that will aim to address the disconnect between the state’s farmers — who, since
the onset of the pandemic, are experiencing a 50 percent drop in demand for their
mostly perishable food — and food banks, many of which are scrambling to meet
skyrocketing demand from families in need. The new initiative is intended as a
win-win, addressing both food waste and food insecurity. Newsom unveiled $3.64
million in new funding to expand the existing Farm to Family program, including
$2.86 million from the USDA and $775,000 committed by philanthropy to
jumpstart a $15 million campaign to further support the program through the end
of the year.
The initiative will enable food-insecure people across the state to receive
roughly 20 million pounds of fresh, locally produced food per month.
Participants will receive fresh food boxes — each of which feeds a family for
three to four days.
Newsom and Karen Ross, California’s Secretary of Agriculture, said that over 200
new farmers and ranchers had already expressed interest in the program.
Read more
here
…
ReFED launches COVID-19 Food Waste Solutions Fund
Image credit: ReFED
And
ReFED
— a collaboration of over 30 business, government, investor, foundation and
nonprofit leaders already committed to eliminating US food waste — is also
working to greatly reduce on-farm food loss, food business closures, and the
growing number of food-insecure people due to the pandemic. The organization has
launched the ReFED COVID-19 Food Waste Solutions Fund to quickly deliver
vital funding to organizations that can rapidly scale food waste reduction and
hunger-relief efforts.
ReFED
says
it anticipates making a minimum of $1 million of grants over the next 30 days
to a portfolio of organizations that will — in the next 90 days — prevent more
than 10 million pounds of food waste and rescue 8.3 million meals. The goal is
to continue raising up to $10 million in donations that will be quickly
regranted to organizations in a position to make a major impact over the next
few months. 100 percent of what is donated will go directly to well-vetted food
waste solution providers on the front lines of the COVID-19 crisis.
Priority focus areas include:
-
Prevention and recovery of fresh and healthy otherwise wasted food,
especially at the farm level
-
Elimination of logistical constraints along the entire food supply chain
-
Last-mile delivery — distributing direct to end recipients, especially
vulnerable populations facing food insecurity
Click
here
for more information and to
apply ...
This story was updated on May 5, 2020.
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Sustainable Brands Staff
Published May 4, 2020 2pm EDT / 11am PDT / 7pm BST / 8pm CEST