from Hacker News

“Food Bank” type charities could be overhauled

by theuttick on 11/16/22, 8:35 PM with 5 comments

I do some work with food banks and some additional work with my church to assist people with food. We will always prepare meals or give people a bag with specific ingredients and a recipe. It's basically "Cook what is in this bag for a meal"

I've noticed that food banks don't work this way. You get a bag of random stuff and people often struggle to use it - which benefits neither side as the food may get wasted.

We could significantly alter this process. We could create an online system to work with grocery stores to purchase meals. As you checkout, you could buy a meal for charity and specific ingredients are taken from the store according to the recipe that the buyer selects, placed into a bag, and donated.

The person receiving the donation could get a voucher from the food bank (virtual or otherwise) and pick up the food from the grocery store when needed.

From a monetary standpoint, a small amount could be taken from the purchase for the overhead of the company.

Another side of the platform could take the random items donated to a food bank and organize them into meals that are preset via an ingredient list. Workers at the food bank would simply find those items, and bag them with the recipe. The system could track any perishables and ensure that they are used first.

Technically, this would be really fun to do. However, there would be a lot of leg work involved and you'd need a YC type backer to get your name out there and get into stores and food banks.

Just something that has been on my mind. I'd love to do this, but I don't have the standing to pull it off something of this magnitude alone.

  • by Finnucane on 11/16/22, 9:12 PM

    You know that some checkout systems already do round-up donations for charities, right? Probably your best bet would be to figure out how to get in line for that (I think it is generally up to the merchant, but I don't really know).

    I get the point below, too: there's plenty of food in the world, but distribution is inefficient and wasteful, and market incentives are borked. But people who need food like right now can't wait until we fix all the systemic issues. Also, there are groups like World Central Kitchen who are trying to get food out when the system breaks down completely, by natural or man-made disaster.

  • by 5bolts on 11/16/22, 9:10 PM

    but the banks are just distributing the donations they have available. it could be cereal today and green beans tomorrow (thats what i helped package when we volunteered as an org). they're not setup to store a truck load of frozen greenbeans just hoping that in the next day or 3 they get the rest of a meal.

    and i believe its to supplement the recipients pantry not be a one stop shop for groceries. hey we got cereal and greenbeans this week from FoodBankXYZ. saves us from having to buy cereal and vegetables with our snap this week!

  • by rdtwo on 11/16/22, 9:16 PM

    I think you missed that the primary funding/purpose of these food banks is as a dumping/write off facility for food manufacturers and grocery stores. Feeding people is secondary