Rethinking a Better Food Future
As an organization that works to respond to the urgent and unprecedented level of food insecurity that our neighbors face today—all while building better and lasting systems where meals consistently and effectively go to areas of food insecurity—we urge the governments to make immediate, concrete and long-lasting commitments to address the growing need affecting our most vulnerable communities.
In June, Rethink Food was invited by NYC Mayor Eric Adams, Congressman Jim McGovern, and other food equity stakeholders to discuss recommendations for the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health which is due to take place in September. This conference is historic since it was last hosted over 50 years and was the launching point for many federal hunger and nutrition programs that we see today, like SNAP—the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. We need to make this Fall’s conference historic again by urgently taking new, critical steps to shape food policy in the United States for years to come.
The upcoming conference will be structured around five key pillars identified by the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health to address the growing issue of hunger and food inequity in our country and to be applied at every level of our society—from organizations working to change to local governments to private companies:
In conversation with Mayor Adams and others, Rethink Food shared its recommendations around these five pillars, which include—but are not limited to—the key following steps:
Bring forward a panel by Rethink Food, including exclusive guests from the hospitality industry, as part of the 2022 White House Conference to discuss recommendations and concrete solutions to improve our food system—especially how to utilize excess food and existing infrastructure to support local communities.
More funding must be allocated for community organizations already working to address these pillars and for social innovation to carry out the plan proposed at the conference.
City, State, and Federal governments must review and update existing legislation and liability protections to help reduce food waste and increase food donation. They must also pass more legislation that supports and encourages stakeholders and organizations across our supply chain to easily integrate the donation of excess food into their daily operations to provide nutritious food to food-insecure individuals.
The government must look to other innovative solutions and models to address our country’s challenges. Specifically, Rethink Food has successfully found that we can leverage restaurants and their existing infrastructure to build community work in their daily operations and provide nutritious meals for food-insecure communities in a cost-effective and culturally celebrated way.
We understand that change doesn’t happen overnight, but critical needs have been unaddressed for far too long. We need to seize this opportunity to take concrete actions that will enact real, lasting change on food security across our country.
Click below to read our full report and learn more about our recommendations for lasting change.
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