Waste Not, Want Not- Kentucky Feeding Network (WiN-WiN)

Commodities

Practices

At a time when 12.8% of households in the United States are
experiencing food insecurity, between 30 and 40 percent of the
food supply is wasted. This translates into approximately 133
billion pounds of food that is wasted each year in the United
States [1]. Food insecurity is particularly prevalent in Kentucky
with 1 in 6 people and 1 in 5 children experiencing food
insecurity [2]. In Kentucky, it is estimated that in 2017 over 40
million tons of food waste was generated with only 6% of that
waste diverted away from landfills and incinerators [3].
Therefore, to reduce FLW while providing food to those
experiencing food and nutrition insecurity, a necessary first
step is to identify where FLW is occurring within a network of
community feeding programs in Kentucky from the level of gleaning
to the point of food distribution to food insecure individuals.
To our knowledge, providing FLW training and education to those
handling donated foods is not a common practice, but is necessary
[4]. Moreover, just as providing surplus food simultaneously
relieves food insecurity and reduces FLW, implementing positive
dietary behaviors concurrently fosters individual FLW reduction
behaviors.

The purpose of The Waste Not, Want Not- Kentucky Feeding
Network (WiN- WiN) project is to 1) increase the recovery of
surplus foods from Kentucky farms and food producers to divergent
models of community-feeding program outlets, 2) assess food loss
and waste (FLW) occurring upon delivery of surplus foods to
community-feeding program outlets and during their distribution
to program recipients, 3) develop and implement training and
education materials for stakeholders involved in gleaning,
feeding and consuming farm fresh foods using our
community-informed FLW reduction and feeding best practices tool
kit, and 4) disseminate our training and education materials to
various organizations throughout Kentucky and beyond to reduce
FLW. The WiN- WiN project operates at the level of
donation, a highly preferred strategy listed in the US
Environmental Protection Agency’s Wasted Food Scale [5]. The
WiN-WiN project is grounded in the Social Ecologic Model
[6] and will use a community-based participatory research (CBPR)
approach [7, 8]. Partners include community-feeding programs
(Whole Food Distributor, Meal Provider, and individual Meal
Preparers), farmers and food producers, and a statewide gleaning
organization. We are purposefully including three different, but
common types of community programs to receive surplus foods in
order to foster expansion of WiN-WiN into other
communities. How these programs use and provide surplus foods to
individuals varies, but there are shared points critical to
reducing FLW across these feeding chains. These differences in
food use and provision create numerous opportunities to generate
FLW reduction and nutrition education training materials for the
providers and feeding program recipients. If funded, this
proposal's outcomes will allow for the development and
implementation of outreach materials that promote FLW reduction
methods along critical points from recovery to distribution
within three common community-feeding program models that are
transferable to other community-feeding programs located in other
Kentucky counties and beyond.

The aims of the proposed WiN-WiN project are to
initiate and implement a gleaning network between farms, food
producers and community-feeding programs in Jessamine County,
Kentucky; establish a FLW tracking system; assess FLW occurring
upon delivery of farm fresh surplus foods to community-feeding
program outlets; assess FLW occurring during their distribution
to program recipients; use our findings to develop FLW reduction
and nutrition training and education materials for distribution
to stakeholders involved in gleaning, feeding and consuming
foods; and then disseminate our community-informed FLW reduction
and feeding best practices tool kit across Kentucky and
nationally.

1.Establish a network of FLW reduction and feeding program
partners, FLW and feeding best practices tool kit, and FLW
tracking system by the end of year 1:

a. Establish a tool kit of FLW reduction and feeding best
practices that uses our well-established Campus Kitchen program
at the University of Kentucky (CKUK) as a model of FLW reduction
and feeding.

b. Build capacity to divert farm food items by increasing from 0
to at least 3, contracts between Glean Kentucky and surplus food
donators in our pilot county (Jessamine County, Kentucky).

c. Increase the number of feeding programs working with Glean
Kentucky (and Kentucky farmers) in Jessamine County, to 4
programs.

• • • Recipient organizations to include at least 1 program
      that provides whole farm food items to recipients; 1
      organization that provides meals made with Kentucky farm
      ingredients to recipients; and 1 organization providing
      Kentucky farm food items, meal preparation and cooking
      education to recipients.

d. Develop a tracking system that can be centrally used across
community partners that captures required grant metrics.

• • • Weight of donated food received from Glean Kentucky
      (amount of food diverted in pounds by city and zip code
      of origin); the weight of donated foods being wasted due
      to the foods being spoiled or not fit for human
      consumption; report the composition of foods being
      diverted; and the amount of food wasted during
      distribution to individuals.

     2. Train community partners
and learn best practices from community partners by the end of
year 2:

a. Increase the number of feeding programs working with Glean
Kentucky (and Kentucky farmers) in Jessamine County, from 4 to at
least 6 programs.

b. Community partners will be trained to use our tracking system
to capture required grant metrics.

c. Begin training community partner feeding organizations with
our initial Campus Kitchen-informed FLW reduction and feeding
program best practices tool kit.

d. Expand the FLW reduction and feeding best practices tool kit
by incorporating feedback from community partner organizations.

e. Begin offering nutrition-related education and training that
aligns with FLW reduction strategies to community organizations
based on feasibility and needs of community feeding programs.

3. Adapt and disseminate FLW reduction and feeding program
training tools by the end of year 3:

a. Finalize the community-informed FLW reduction and feeding best
practices tool kit. Develop at minimum 3 FLW reduction and
feeding program resources based on our best practices tool kit to
include a manual and potentially develop presentations,
workshops, training videos, guidance documents, other online
resources, and scholarly and academic articles.

b. Disseminate FLW training and outreach materials to at least 5
different audiences to build capacity in other locations and
venues to reduce food loss and waste.

c. Identify and build capacity in a contiguous county, located in
the Central Kentucky Extension Region, by establishing a
community advisory board to work towards developing a FLW
reduction and feeding program network that utilizes our best
practices tool kit.