Q: How is the Abound brand (formerly Waste Not OC) changing?

A: We are reintroducing our brand and organization to the world, as Abound Food Care. In addition to a new name, we’re also modernizing our overall look and feel. Our goal is to spark a national food care movement and attract others to join us in this effort.

Q: Why are we doing this now?

A: The sustained success of our model, demonstrated by significant measurable results in Orange County, makes us uniquely qualified to apply our regional solutions to a national problem — reducing hunger and food waste. Abound Food Care has gone beyond excess edible food donation to the larger and even more relevant level: food care. Accordingly, we needed a name and brand that enables us to tell that bigger story — one that better reflects who we are and clarifies the scope of our work in showing partners how to better care for food, people, and planet.

Q: How is Abound’s scope changing?

A: Of course, we will continue our important work in Orange County, continually refining and improving the food ecosystem that’s in place. However, real food care solutions exist on a regional level and on a national scale. Abound will be focusing on activating these solutions and resources to optimize the food supply chain.

Q: What new services will Abound offer?

A: Our services will focus on:

Consultation: Through the development and implementation of the Waste Not OC (as we were previously known) model for food recovery, recognized nationally for its program effectiveness and innovation, Abound uses our unique and extensive experience across multiple sectors to assess, enhance, or develop an effective food recovery/food waste reduction program in communities around the world.

Program oversight: Abound has the experience and existing partnerships needed to effectively provide oversight of a successful food recovery/food waste reduction program in a particular community. Our goal is to deliver and maintain a successful, cost-effective, collaborative program that enhances the brands of our public, private, and nonprofit partners and becomes a valuable resource in combating hunger.

Program management: Abound is a regional solution to a national problem that relies on the entire community. Often, this means coordinating the participation of a variety of stakeholders from multiple sectors with varying interests, competencies, and goals. Accomplishing success amidst this complicated dynamic can sometimes seem daunting and unobtainable. In such communities, Abound can provide an experienced and nuanced approach along with the ability to identify resources, navigate obstacles, and activate strategies and partners that will ultimately lead to a successful program. The result: A stronger, healthier, cleaner community.

Q: What are the foundational elements of our refreshed brand?

A: Below are the elements that have been created or updated. Collectively, they guide our daily actions and help us communicate our story, internally and externally:

• New Name — updated to “Abound Food Care” to communicate the opportunity in front of us
• New Logo — along with a new overall look and feel
• Guiding Statements — our Mission, Vision, and Values, which offer us direction and inspiration
• Brand Pillars — our defining strengths, along with attributes that offer more context

Q: What are our Brand Pillars?

A: Here are our Brand Pillars — our defining strengths:

Knowledge & Expertise

As a food care organization recognized for optimizing food ecosystems, we are on a mission to activate food supply chain solutions to eliminate hunger, reduce food waste, and accelerate growth through collaboration. By leveraging partnerships, data and technology, we are helping to maximize the efficiency of public, private, and nonprofit sectors to create a healthier and safer community.

Connected Food Supply Chain

We connect and align various partners across the food system continuum — food recovery partners, nonprofit agencies, businesses, schools, and healthcare organizations — to create a total connected system that delivers food to people who need it, at the right place and at the right time. This optimized food supply chain delivers multiple benefits — increased operational and cost efficiencies, speed and access to food, while diverting waste from ending up in landfills.

Data That Empowers Change

By using data to optimize the food supply chain, we help entire regions shift from addressing food shortages to a more predictive, proactive approach. Using statistically proven models, we assist organizations in their efforts to maximize efficiency, reduce food waste, and comply with state and local mandates.

Marketing Experts

As fierce advocates, we shine a spotlight on food insecurity and its negative impact on the health of our communities and environment. Through education, thought leadership, and targeted outreach, we promote the multiple health and environmental benefits of excess edible food recovery. We inspire people to be a part of the solution by providing the tools and knowledge needed to take action in their own communities.

Fundraising Experts

To address our national food insecurity problem, we are fighting scale with scale. By connecting all the major food players to work better together, we identify, seek out, and unlock new philanthropic partnerships and investment capital to impact change on a national scale. Through this national effort we hope to create a sustainable revenue model for a food secure future.

Q: Why did we change the name to Abound Food Care?

A: Our model has always been about more than food recovery. We identify the gaps in the food supply chain that lead to food waste and food insecurity. Just as there is an abundance of food, there are an abundance of resources, partnerships, innovations and solutions to address our food challenges. The Abound Food Care name embodies this abundance and defines our care of food. We are proud to be the nation’s first food care organization and excited to scale our solutions beyond Orange County to become the national model for food care.

Q: What does “food care” mean?

A: Food care is the active and passionate protection of food, its process, cost, and impact. The food that passes through our hands, and those of our partners, is treated with respect and handled with care, so that it maintains its high intrinsic value and fulfills its ultimate purpose: to feed people. This care includes sourcing high-quality excess food, repurposing these ingredients into timely, nutritious meals, and directing them to where they’re needed most. We take great care of our food so that great food takes care of us, and we educate and show other organizations and individuals to do the same.

Q: What does our logo represent?

A: The Abound logo is round — symbolizing the Earth, a full plate, and the holistic approach that Abound takes in caring for food, people, and planet. Represented inside the circle is the integration and collaboration of diverse ingredients — people, ideas, and solutions — to provoke much-needed change in our communities. The outside circle represents Abound as the connective tissue that orchestrates the different players to create a beautiful harmony — a more efficient food system that yields a bountiful harvest. Together, all these components convey the emotional heart of the Abound brand — offering proactive solutions and an optimistic outlook that are plentiful, abundant, and joyful beyond all else.

Q: How do I talk about Abound Food Care?

A: The Opportunity:
The issues of food insecurity, food waste, and the protection of our environment have never been more urgent. During this COVID-19 crisis, millions of Americans are experiencing food insecurity for the very first time, compounding our country’s hunger problem. Meanwhile, many food industry entities do not know how to efficiently save and donate excess edible food for recovery, and the financial, human, and environmental benefits of doing so.

Abound has an important, urgent opportunity — right now, and in nearly all locations across the country — to educate organizations about these challenges and the existing, doable solutions that can address them in a safe and sustainable way.

Who We Are:
Abound is a food care organization committed to solving the world’s most pressing challenges — food supply chain inefficiencies that lead to food waste, and the resulting negative health impact of food insecurity and the environmental effects on our planet. Founded in 2012 as Waste Not OC, we power a revolutionary model that connects all the components of an optimized food ecosystem that champions zero waste. In communities around the nation, we help organizations save excess edible food from ending up in landfills, and optimize the movement of this nutritious food to where it’s needed most: to feed people and power our communities.

The Benefits of Building Thriving Ecosystems:
We bring together nonprofit organizations, for-profit companies, food industry organizations, government, healthcare providers, and residents to create a thriving ecosystem that rescues edible food from becoming waste.

By bringing together the different parts/players to create a connected food supply chain, we are able to fulfill these Four Bountiful Benefits:

• End hunger: An optimized food supply means that fewer and fewer people
  go hungry.
• Improve health: Reducing food insecurity builds stronger communities, with less strain on our healthcare system.
• Protect the planet: By sending less food to landfills, we sustainably reduce greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.
• Create jobs: Food care creates jobs, teaches skills, and supports local economic development.

Abound Food Care Solutions:
We show organizations and communities how to employ responsible and sustainable food care practices, making it better, safer, and healthier for people and planet alike. Our proven, cost-effective food care solutions are flexibly offered based on needs, and they include:

• Food Resource Recovery: Logistics planning, recovery resources, and data collection to help jurisdictions cost-effectively comply with state and local mandates, as well as combat food insecurity in their communities.
• Emergency Food Management: An emergency food program implemented by jurisdictions to guarantee a reliable food supply system during a crisis.
• Medically Tailored Meals: Food insecurity screening and individualized custom meal plans to help hospitals and nonprofits deliver total health to food insecure patients with dietary requirements.
• Food Donation: A food recovery program to help restaurants, grocery stores, and other food waste generators reduce their food waste, maximize their bottom line, and provide excess edible food with a second life.

Q: What kind of support materials do we have to tell our story?

A: With an expansive new vision, name, story, and logo, this is a great opportunity to reintroduce ourselves to existing and new partners, and the public at large. Our message is that food care is a comprehensive solution to protect the well-being of our people and our planet. And every single person can contribute to the solution!

You will have access to the following materials to help educate organizations and individuals, and encourage them to join the food care movement:

• New website, complete with solution stories and partner pages
• Corporate overview PowerPoint
• Brand video
• Testimonial videos
• Solution sell sheets
• Social media channels (Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube) and guidelines
• Brand identity guidelines
• Brand voice messaging guidelines

Q: How can we get others to join the food care movement?

A: Food care is a team sport — it’s powered by real collaboration and a passion to improve our world. Here are six “calls to action” that we’ll use for connecting to others:

• Encourage the donation of excess edible food to reduce food waste
• Implement a food resource recovery program in your community
• Reduce food insecurity by implementing a food insecurity screening or the Medically Tailored Meal program in your hospital or community resource center
• Volunteer to pick up and transport excess edible food to local food pantries
• Donate funds or services towards a variety of programs for food care efforts
• Show support by patronizing businesses who participate in the Abound Food Care food donation program

Our Mission — We provide solutions and facilitate collaboration with public, private, and non-profit sectors to guide and support the implementation of regional food care programs that optimize the supply chain to end hunger and food-waste.

Our Vision — A world in which hunger and food waste are eliminated.

Our Values —

Food Care – Food that passes through our hands, and those of our partners, is treated with respect and handled with care, so that it maintains its high intrinsic value and fulfills its intended purpose: to feed people. We educate and support other organizations and individuals how to do the same.

Impact – Every day we make decisions with an understanding of the short-term impact we have on people’s lives without losing sight of achieving our long-term goal of sparking a national movement that can take better care of our communities and planet.

Ingenuity – Solving the critical challenges we face requires a willingness to disrupt conventions of the past by considering new viewpoints, inspiring new ways of thinking, and creating new solutions that improve communities.

Connectivity – Our success is reliant on our ability to bring people together, both our own team and our partners from the public, private, and non-profit sectors. We rely on all participants, look for commonalities to break down silos, and utilize people’s strengths to fill gaps.

Empathy – In addressing hunger and food insecurity we find value in serving others while showing respect and understanding for everyone we encounter. We not only provide solutions we are advocates for others.

Passion – In addressing hunger and food insecurity we find value in serving others while showing respect and understanding for everyone we encounter. We not only provide solutions we are advocates for others.

Accountability – Each one of us is responsible for our actions, effective use of time, and our results. We honor our commitments, both as a team and as individuals, with timely and quality deliverables. We are proactive with open and honest communications to those that are relying on us.

Food is essential to grow and thrive. Food powers your life, your business, your community. Today, 37 million Americans do not have access to food, a most basic necessity for survival. In the United States, 40% of food produced is wasted and sent to landfills, leading to methane gas, a known greenhouse gas pollutant.

In our communities around the nation, food banks, pantries, restaurants, and other food donors and rescuers are the first responders to our nation’s hungry and vulnerable populations. At Abound Food Care, we power a revolutionary model and a unique public/private/nonprofit partnership that connects the different parts of the food ecosystem. This connected food supply chain powers the movement of food to optimize and accelerate the flow of food so that we can feed more people, and lessen the burden on the environment by preventing waste from ending up in landfills.

We are sparking a national movement to optimize the food supply chain at an unprecedented, accelerated rate so that we can take better care of our communities and planet.

Food rescue organizations are brave and bold in their mission to fight against hunger, but are often challenged by limited resources. As an indispensable partner, we propel our food partners’ ability to optimize their operations, increase capacity, and scale up through the power of education, data, technologies, and activation strategies.

Our purpose is to build a sustainable future by ending hunger and food waste. But we can’t do it alone. It’s our shared responsibility. By bringing communities closer together, we hope to inspire more people and businesses to take part in this movement. Together, we can act quickly to save lives, reduce the burden on our environment, and build a more promising future for all.

• Knowledge & Expertise
• Connected Food Supply Chain
• Data That Empowers Change
• Marketing Experts
• Fundraising Experts