Food Waste, Food Insecurity, and the Globalization of Food Banks

"Food banks-warehouses that collect and systematize surplus food-have expanded into one of the largest mechanisms to redistribute food waste. From their origins in North America in the 1960s, food banks provide food to communities in approximately one hundred countries on six continents. This book analyzes the development of food banks across the world and the limits of food charity as a means to reduce food insecurity and food waste. Based on fifteen years of in-depth fieldwork on four continents across North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, this volume illustrates how and why food banks proliferate across the globe even though their impacts may be limited. Rather than addressing the root causes of food insecurity and food waste, governments and corporations promote food banks because it allows them to deflect attention away from their own institutional shortcomings. The coronavirus crisis has only further underscored the fact that food bank systems are a patchwork of charities rather than a systematic network to reduce food insecurity and food waste. Given the limited impacts and potential pitfalls of food banks in different contexts, the author of this book suggests that we need to reformulate the role of food banks. To start, the mission of food banks needs to be clearer and more realistic, as food surpluses cannot reduce food insecurity on a significant scale. In addition, food banks need to regain their institutional independence from the state and corporations and incorporate the knowledge and experiences of the food insecure in the daily operations of the food system. Also, given that food systems are designed differently across the Global South, food banks may not be a good fit for development in some contexts. If implemented, these collective changes can contribute to a future where food banks play a smaller but more targeted role in food systems"--