Practice Title: Advancing Food Recovery to Reduce Food Waste in Los Angeles County, California
Department: Los Angeles County Department of Public Health
Size: Large (Population of 500,000+ people)
State: California
Summary of Practice:
The Los Angeles County is home to approximately 10 million people, making it the most populous county in the United States and the State of California. It is comprised of 88 cities, including the City of Los Angeles (>3.5 million residents). The County of Los Angeles Department of Public Health (DPH) serves 85 of these 88 cities (Pasadena, Long Beach, and Vernon have their own public health departments) as well as County’s unincorporated communities. Within DPH, the Division of Chronic Disease and Injury Prevention’s Nutrition and Physical Activity Program (NPAP) implements a variety of local, state, and federal grant-supported programs, which provides nutrition education and implements policy, system, and environmental change strategies to improve healthy food access among low-income communities experiencing food and nutrition insecurity.
The dual issues of food insecurity and food waste converge at the challenge of effective food recovery systems (for the purposes of this narrative, the terms “donation”, “recovery”, and “rescue” are used interchangeably). In Los Angeles County, approximately half a million households experience food insecurity, which is the reduced quality, variety, or desirability of diet. Food insecurity poses both short and long-term health risks for children and adults. At the same time, approximately 1.7 million tons of food are sent to landfills from businesses, schools, etc., accounting for one-third of the state’s total food waste stream. Food waste has an environmental impact – for example, when food breaks down in a landfill, it produces large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas that is at least 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide. As such, connecting surplus food to those in need increases the amount of food for low-income communities and repurposes food so that it does not end up in landfills. Surplus food donations, however, will not solve food insecurity by itself (albeit, they do address the immediate needs of communities). Rather, eliminating food insecurity will require addressing other underlying determinants that causes poor nutrition security such as poverty.
In 2016, ReFED, a national nonprofit focused on advancing data-driven solutions to end food waste, published a report titled, “The 2016 Roadmap to Reduce U.S. Food Waste by 20 Percent.” The report cited that barriers such as liability concerns, handling, transportation, storage, and financial challenges are common factors that prevent efficient and reliable processes needed to solicit and process food donations so that they can benefit those in need. Conducting this work can also become labor-intensive because of the inefficiencies caused by a lack of real-time information on food availability. The present pilot project was launched with this in mind. With limited funding, the pilot sought to build out a local infrastructure for food recovery work by using a technology-based solution to connect surplus, wholesome food to those in need. It aims to accomplish two goals: (a) increase the amount of food for low-income communities, and (b) prevent food from ending up in landfills and contributing to environmental impacts and climate change.
The first activity of this food redistribution program was to provide 50 subscriptions to the selected food-recovery mobile app (the technology-based solution). For those food businesses and entities (e.g., including school districts’ food service/meal programs) that gained access to the app, 12 months of app and program support were provided – these included on-demand pick‑up of surplus food and simultaneous tracking of the donations. NPAP and other DPH staff kickstarted the project through initial outreach and education about the services offered to hospitals, schools, city officials, community-based organizations, and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Works (“Public Works”).
The pilot project leveraged County relationships as well as external community partnerships to raise awareness about this program’s efforts to increase efficiency in food redistribution and to recruit businesses and other eligible entities to participate in the redistribution initiative. For example, project staff conducted presentations at Public Works’ Los Angeles County Food Recovery Workshop, at a convening by the Hospital Association of Southern California, and for members of the Nutrition Access LA network – a multi-sector coalition comprising of government, community-based organizations, advocacy, health care, school districts, and other sectors working collaboratively to ensure that all people in Los Angeles County have access to sufficient, nutritious, and affordable food. In Winter 2021, Public Work’s Food DROP (Food Donation and Recovery Program) team promoted the project during its check-in calls to businesses needing resources to redirect their surplus foods. NPAP also leveraged the resources of its Environmental Health Division within DPH to contact all permitted food businesses in the county via email to recruit them.
The mobile app technology was free for nonprofit organizations and helped them track pounds of food rescued and the number of meals they served to their communities. In addition, several public school districts from across the county also participated in the project. All applications for the app and program were screened to ensure that participating businesses/entities were more likely to donate nutrient dense foods such as lean proteins, whole grains, and fresh produce versus unhealthy foods to end user organizations (e.g., food pantries, non-traditional meal program sites). Through a grant from the County of Los Angeles Quality and Productivity Commission – Productivity Investment Fund (PIF), the pilot project paid for 50 out of 50 planned subscriptions; onboarded 21 county region CBOs into the recipient network; and coordinated the rescue of 102,000 pounds of edible food (approximately 84,900 meals) donated to end user (nonprofit) organizations. These activities equate to traveling an average of 7.4 miles from donor to an end user (nonprofit) organization. 455,000 pounds of CO2 emissions and 10.1 million gallons of water were saved from these donations. Taking the social cost of carbon, agricultural value of water, and value of each meal into consideration, this yielded a total cost benefit of about $1 million. The top five types of foods donated included bread, fruit, pre-packaged foods, dairy, and vegetables.
In October 2022, NPAP (DPH) and Public Works were awarded a “Top Ten Award” for 2022 by the County’s Quality and Productivity Commission.
Access the program website here: http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/nut/productivity-investment-funding.htm.
Advancing Food Recovery to Reduce Food Waste in Los Angeles County, California
Category
Health Equity and Social Justice
Description