COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Food Archives

E288: Farmlink’s responsive, logistical success preventing food waste

December 8, 2025

Today we’re speaking with Aidan Reilly, co-founder and chief of External Affairs at the Farmlink Project, a national nonprofit connecting farmers with surplus produce to communities facing insecurity. What’s especially interesting about Farmlink (https://www.farmlinkproject.org/) is that it was started by college students in 2020 as a response to the food supply challenges our nation experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The project is now a nationwide movement of college students who provide a key logistical link in a food system that currently sees up to a third of all food produced go to waste. The program delivers fresh produce to food banks as opposed to packaged or processed foods at zero cost, as opposed to charging delivery fees.

Related podcasts: Agriculture & Tech | COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Food | Food Banks, Food Pantries & Soup Kitchens | Food Waste & Implications |

E286: How ‘least cost diet’ models fuel food security policy

October 31, 2025

Governments use something called a ‘least cost diet’ to monitor food access, inform policy discussions, and target interventions to improve food security and nutrition. So, what is the least cost diet? Well, it’s a minimum amount of money needed to purchase a nutritionally adequate diet. Today we are lucky to have two researchers who share an interest in working with least cost diets, understanding their efficacy and thinking about that both domestically in the US and internationally. Our guests today are food and nutrition policy economists Will Masters and Parke Wilde from Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition, science and Policy.

E283: Taylor Hanson’s Food On The Move

September 24, 2025

Today we’re joined by Tulsa, Oklahoma, native Taylor Hanson, who at age nine with two of his brothers formed the band Hanson. Within five years, they released their initial album there were Grammy nominations and one of their songs hit number one in 27 countries. But more pertinent to our discussion today is Taylor’s commitment to social change, which includes work he’s done on extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa and the nonprofit grassroots organization addressing food insecurity he founded called Food On The Move. Food On The Move provides access, education and innovative solutions to transform food deserts and the legacy issues created by food insecurity. Since its founding, this organization has distributed millions of pounds of fresh produce to members of the Oklahoma community as a leader in the movement to reshape sustainable local food systems.

E254: Why is food so expensive?

October 31, 2024

If you feel like your grocery budget just doesn’t buy you as much as it once did, you’re not alone. According to U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, food prices rose 11. 4 percent last year alone – the highest annual increase in 23 years. The ongoing pinch at the grocery store has been in the news of a lot of media outlets, such as The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Times Magazine, Forbes, and so many others. Our guest today, food economics and policy professor David Ortega from Michigan State, is going to walk us through the food price inflation phenomenon.

Related podcasts: COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Food | Economics of the food system | Food Industry Behavior & Marketing | History & Food |

E238: Celebrating the Successes of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation

June 27, 2024

Nonprofit organizations can play a very important role in building healthy communities by providing services that contribute to community stability, social mobility, public policy, and decision-making. Today we’re speaking with Kathy Higgins, CEO of the Alliance for Healthier Generation. The Alliance is a nonprofit organization, a well-known one at that, that promotes healthy environments so that young people can achieve lifelong good health.

E197: USDA plans for online WIC Benefits

February 28, 2023

In February, 2023, the US Department of Agriculture announced plans to streamline and modernize WIC – the Women Infants and Children Program focused on supplemental nutrition. We’ll talk about the future of WIC today with Stacy Dean, the Deputy Undersecretary for USDA’s Food, Nutrition and Consumer Services.

E186: Deep dive into challenges people face accessing food pantries

November 7, 2022

The COVID-19 pandemic deeply impacted the US food chain and has heightened attention on nonprofit food pantries and soup kitchens. Today’s guest argues that sometimes the people most in need of food face the most challenges in getting it because of food pantry operating procedures. Our guest, Alana Stein has conducted research on these issues at the University of California at Davis.

E184: Carolina Farm Stewardship Association – Connecting Farmers & Communities

October 26, 2022

Today we’re speaking with Roland McReynolds, Executive Director of the Carolina Farm Stewardship Association which is a member-based farmer-driven, non-profit organization based in Pittsboro, North Carolina, that helps farmers and consumers in both North and South Carolina grow and eat local organic food.

E176: Insights from a nationwide survey of hunger relief organizations during COVID

July 20, 2022

During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, much of the US was in lockdown. Many people had lost jobs or could not work from home during that time and struggled to pay their bills. Shortages of food and other basic necessities were common. Many people needed help during this time. Charitably-funded volunteer staff organizations like soup kitchens and food pantries suddenly found themselves on the front line of a massive ongoing food relief emergency. Many of them did heroic work. We’re speaking today with the co-authors of a new report titled, “The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on US Hunger Relief Organizations, from August and November of 2020.” Gizem Templeton is a researcher at Duke University’s World Food Policy Center. Alison Cohen, formerly of WhyHunger, is a research consultant on the project. And Suzanne Babb is the director of US programs at WhyHunger.

E154: Micropantries and Community Resilience during the COVID-19 Pandemic

January 21, 2022

Today, we’re going to speak about micropantries as a form of community resilience in the face of the food insecurity exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Our guests today are Reverend Wendy Miller Olapade of the United Church of Christ in Medford, Massachusetts, professor Norbert Wilson, who’s Professor of Food Economics and Community at Duke University, and lead author of a recent paper on micropantries in the Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior, Sara Folta, with the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition, Science, and Policy.

Podcast Topic: COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Food

The Leading Voices in Food

Podcast Topic: COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Food

E288: Farmlink’s responsive, logistical success preventing food waste

E286: How ‘least cost diet’ models fuel food security policy

E283: Taylor Hanson’s Food On The Move

E254: Why is food so expensive?

E238: Celebrating the Successes of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation

E197: USDA plans for online WIC Benefits

E186: Deep dive into challenges people face accessing food pantries

E184: Carolina Farm Stewardship Association – Connecting Farmers & Communities

E176: Insights from a nationwide survey of hunger relief organizations during COVID

E154: Micropantries and Community Resilience during the COVID-19 Pandemic