Starbucks is donating ALL of its unsold food!
The latte giant announced all 7,600 of their stores will be donating unsold food items to local charities and food banks to aid the ongoing hunger crisis in America.
The company announced a program called FoodShare, which aims to donate ready-made meals to food banks and shelters. It’s a partnership with Food Donation Connection and Feeding America that will serve nearly five million families in the first year of the initiative, according to the press release.
“Starbucks intends to scale this program over the next five years and rescue 100 percent of its food available for donation from participating company-operated U.S. stores. That amounts to almost 50 million meals by 2021,” states the company.
Efforts have been going on for a little over 5 years, now. Since 2010, Food Donation Connection has been working with Starbucks to collect their unsold pastries. Now, Feeding America is joining the initiative. According to the press release, Feeding America will send refrigerated vans to each Starbucks store to collect the unsold food items. From there, they will be redistributed to the local partnering food banks.
This hasn’t been easy for the coffee giant.
Food safety regulations have required stores to discard unsold food, a practice that is illegal in some countries on the other side of the globe. What has made the initiative difficult is how to distribute the food while preserving the quality.
“The challenge was finding a way to preserve the food’s quality during delivery. We focused on maintaining the temperature, texture and flavor of the surplus food, so when it reached a person in need, they could safely enjoy it,” said Starbucks Food brand manager Jane Maly.
The initiative will not only serve hunger efforts, but reduce food waste pollution. Starbucks has made it part of their values to reduce their carbon footprint (check out your Starbucks napkin!). More than 30 million (!!!) tons of food is wasted in America every year, according to Feeding America. Imagine all of the plastic containers and paper goods that get discarded instead of recycled and reused. It adds up, as do your leftover scraps. Wasted food contributes to greenhouse gases.
Starbucks hopes that this initiative and the good they will be doing for their communities will inspire other restaurants and companies to participate. Hunger is an issue that affects about 50 million Americans, according to the U.S Department of Agriculture.