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

View the project report

Commodities

Practices

• Sustainable Communities: food loss and waste recovery/reduction, food sovereignty

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.