Podcast Topic: Food Banks, Food Pantries & Soup Kitchens
The Leading Voices in Food
Podcast Topic: Food Banks, Food Pantries & Soup Kitchens
E263: Explore the Daily Table non profit grocery store model
February 5, 2025
Today, we’re going to explore Daily Table, an innovative non profit grocery chain dedicated to providing fresh, convenient, and nutritious food affordable to everyone, even those on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP. In today’s economic climate, where rising food prices are impacting households across the country, the concept of a non profit grocery store seems to fill a real need. Our guest today is Daily Table CEO, Sasha Purpura, a software engineer who spent 15 years in the tech industry and product management and development roles.
Related podcasts: Advocacy & Food | Community & Economic Development | Economics of the food system | Equity, Race & Food Justice | Food Banks, Food Pantries & Soup Kitchens | Food Insecurity | Philanthropy & Food Systems |
E260: Food Recovery Network Urges Food Date Labeling Reform
January 14, 2025
I don’t know about you and your household, but in my home, we have a long history of opening the refrigerator and discovering pasta sauce or mayonnaise that we don’t remember when it was put in the refrigerator, when we last opened it, and we’re confused. We open the container; we smell it; we check out the date label. And if we’re confused, we have a mantra: when in doubt, throw it out. But aren’t those date labels supposed to help us make good decisions about whether or not a food product is safe? Currently, there is no federal regulation on what those labels should say. Best Buy, Use Buy, Sell Buy, or what have you. However, there is legislation in the Congress called the Food Date Labeling Act to help us address this issue. And today’s guest, Regina Harmon, will help us explore this particular issue. She is the executive director of the Food Recovery Network, the largest student led movement fighting food waste and hunger in the United States.
Related podcasts: Climate Change, Environment & Food | Food Banks, Food Pantries & Soup Kitchens | Food Insecurity | Food Waste & Implications |
E244: US Food History – Food as a tool for oppression
September 4, 2024
Today we discuss a new and provocatively titled book written by Southwestern Law School professor Andrea Freeman, an expert on issues of race, food policy, and health from both legal and policy perspectives. The book’s title, Ruin Their Crops on the Ground, the Politics of Food in the United States from the Trail of Tears to School Lunch, has been called the first and definitive history of the use of food in the United States law and politics as a weapon of conquest and control. Freeman argues that the U. S. food law and policy process has both created and maintained racial and social inequity. She documents governmental policies from colonization to slavery; to the commodities supplied to Native American reservations. She argues that the long-standing alliance between government and the food industry has produced racial health disparities to this day.
Related podcasts: Equity, Race & Food Justice | Food Banks, Food Pantries & Soup Kitchens | Food Policy | Food System Narratives | History & Food |
E225: Efficient Food Recovery and Waste Prevention – a Business Strategy
January 17, 2024
Our guest today is Jasmine Crowe-Houston, social entrepreneur, and founder of Goodr.co. Jasmine started her journey cooking soul food for hungry unhoused people in her kitchen in her one-bedroom apartment in Atlanta. She fed upwards of 500 people a week for years with pop-up kitchens and parks and parking lots. Then in 2017, she founded Goodr, a technology-based food waste management company that connects firms with food surpluses to nonprofit organizations that can use the food. She has worked with organizations that have food waste issues, such as the Atlanta International Airport, Hormel Foods, and Turner Broadcasting. Today, Goodr has expanded nationwide and sponsors free grocery stores and schools. She has combined charity, innovation, and market-based solutions into a for-profit waste management company that Inc. Magazine called a rare triple win.
Related podcasts: Climate Change, Environment & Food | Equity, Race & Food Justice | Food Banks, Food Pantries & Soup Kitchens | Food Insecurity | Food Safety & Food Defense | Food Waste & Implications |
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.
Related podcasts: COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Food | Diet & Nutrition | Equity, Race & Food Justice | Food Banks, Food Pantries & Soup Kitchens | Food Insecurity |
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.
Related podcasts: COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Food | Equity, Race & Food Justice | Food Banks, Food Pantries & Soup Kitchens | Food Insecurity | Food Policy | Philanthropy & Food Systems |
E112: Food Banks, Food Pantries, and the Promise of More
February 9, 2021
Food banks and food pantries provide life-saving help for families all around the country. Like other institutions addressing food issues, there is growing focus on providing not just food, but healthy food. There are complex issues in this picture, however, issues we can address with today’s guest, Dr. Marlene Schwartz. Schwartz is director of the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity and Professor of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Connecticut.
Related podcasts: Food Banks, Food Pantries & Soup Kitchens | Food Insecurity | Food Policy | Philanthropy & Food Systems | Social Safety Net & Food |
E98: The COVID-19 Pandemic Response of No Kid Hungry
November 9, 2020
This podcast is part of a series focused on the far-reaching impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the food system. Today we’re looking at how responses to the pandemic have affected food availability and nutrition for one of America’s most vulnerable populations – young children. Joining me is Eleni Towns, the Associate Director of the No Kid Hungry Campaign at Share Our Strength.
Related podcasts: Advocacy & Food | COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Food | Diet & Nutrition | Food Banks, Food Pantries & Soup Kitchens | Food Insecurity | Food Policy | Philanthropy & Food Systems | Social Safety Net & Food |
E80: Janet Poppendieck – COVID Highlights the Problems with Charity Food
July 30, 2020
This podcast is part of a series focused on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re exploring today, the role of charitable efforts to address food access. Places such as food banks, soup kitchens and food pantries. Janet Poppendieck has studied the emergency food system in the U.S. for decades. She is professor emerita of sociology at Hunter College, City University of New York and the author of the book, “Sweet Charity, Emergency Food and the End of Entitlement.”
Related podcasts: Advocacy & Food | COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Food | Equity, Race & Food Justice | Food Banks, Food Pantries & Soup Kitchens | Food Insecurity | Food Policy | Social Safety Net & Food |
E79: Andy Fisher on Exploring the Connection Between Industry and Food Banks
July 20, 2020
This podcast is part of a series focused on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic is exposing a deep flaw in the country’s food system, namely stunning levels of food insecurity, but also the transformation of emergency food assistance into what some have characterized as an industry as food charity become big business. Andy Fisher, our guest today is a leader in the Food Security and Food Justice Movement. He founded and led The National Community Food Security Coalition and led Federal Legislation campaigns to gain more than $200 million for community-based food security and farm to school projects.
Related podcasts: COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts on Food | Equity, Race & Food Justice | Food Banks, Food Pantries & Soup Kitchens | Food Industry Behavior & Marketing | Food Policy | Philanthropy & Food Systems |