Last year, the Food Bank distributed nearly 34 million pounds of food across Central Texas. We have been able to rescue more than 18.7 million pounds of food from 318 stores, manufacturers, farms, distributors and wholesalers. Despite our efforts to help end hunger, there is still more than 400 million pounds of good food in Austin that end up in a landfill. That’s food that could be on someone’s table.
With the help of Feeding America, the nationwide network of food banks, we are able to rescue food more efficiently by empowering our partner agencies with a technology platform that allows them to report their rescue donations on behalf of the Food Bank.
Through Feeding America’s Online Marketplace portal, our Partner Agencies can go online and report how many pounds of food and what type of food they rescued from a donor. The information is then stored in Feeding America’s database where the report is sent to the corporate donor and where the Food Bank can download the report.
This online portal has eliminated the process of having Partner Agencies write down the pounds of food they rescued and faxing that information to the Food Bank to have it manually entered into our database. By removing this cumbersome process, we are able to increase involvement in our Agency Retail Pickup initiative by increasing donations and attracting potential donors who can be sure that their donations are getting accurately reported.
Besides making the data entry process more efficient, the information we receive lets us track how many donations are getting picked up by what agency and what kind of food they’re picking up. It also holds our agency partners accountable for the pick-ups they request. As we analyze the data we receive, we are able to find trends that will help us increase our efforts and provide more food for families in our community.
Thanks to our Partner Agency Retail Pick Up initiative and this technology, we are able to reduce food waste in our community by allowing our partner agencies to pick up food donations directly from retailers near them and report it accurately. Though our fight to end hunger is far from being over, the Food Bank will continue to look for opportunities to be more efficient in order to feed more families.
