Food Care and Why It’s Important

Welcome to the first blog from Abound Food Care. As we start you may ask, “Why would Abound start a blog? What will you be sharing and how is it of importance to me?”

Two major social challenges are at the heart of our focus. According to the USDA’s Food Insecurity in the United States report, more than 35 million people in the United States experience hunger. At the same time, the USDA estimates that food waste represents 30 – 40 percent of the nation’s food supply.

We believe there is a great opportunity to reduce food waste and redirect edible food to non-profits food distribution agencies focused on reducing food insecurity. However, the path to that outcome is not easy. We need to overcome misconceptions around the path from food donors to recipients. It’s not just a simple donation request, it requires logistics coordination, understanding of safe food handling, cold storage, tracking technology, regional coordination, and a host of other critical capabilities.

All of these activities fall under an umbrella which, at Abound, we call “food care.”

In the weeks and months ahead, we’ll dig deeper into all the elements of food recovery including the associated complexities and misconceptions. We’ll also share more about “food care” and how it provides solutions for proper food recovery. Future discussions also include a deeper dive on the ROI (it’s positive) for all participants in the food recovery chain including the food industry (such as processors, restaurants, markets, etc.), waste haulers, municipalities, and non-profits.

It is our hope to provide a deeper understanding as to why food care and food recovery are such important topics. Food recovery has the potential to provide significant health benefits through impact on both environmental health and personal health.

Many processes involved in food production produce by-products that are harmful to the environment. When wasted food goes to landfill to decompose it becomes a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and the resultant climate impacts. Through the implementation of comprehensive food recovery programs, we can significantly reduce the environmental impact of food waste by enabling the redirection of edible food away from landfill and toward organizations that can effectively use it.

As highlighted earlier, a significant portion of our nation’s population is food insecure. This food insecurity leads to a range of health problems. Consumers are often forced to purchase inexpensive, but far less healthy, food; among other problems, numerous studies have shown a high occurrence of obesity among food insecure individuals. Further, many diet related diseases – diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease among them – have been associated with food insecurity. Again, through food recovery programs, we can reduce food insecurity and the personal health problems it creates.

Moving forward with our blog posts we will dive deeper into many of these topics in the hope that we can enable a broader understanding of food waste and its impact on food insecurity, personal health, the environment, and more. At the same time, we will highlight the potential for food care and food recovery to mitigate the negative outcomes.