Washington—No federal policies and few state policies affecting food bank donations currently prioritize nutrition, according to a report released recently by the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).
The coronavirus pandemic has triggered unprecedented financial and health hardship for millions of US households and placed tremendous stress on the charitable food system (CFS), the report noted. At least 60 million individuals turned to the CFS in 2020, and food banks are serving 55 percent more people than before the pandemic.
The CFS, the country’s network of emergency feeding programs, is meant to be a last resort, the report explained. Federal food assistance programs, such as the SNAP and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program WIC, serve as a first line of defense against food insecurity.
People who rely on the CFS both want and deserve nutritious foods and beverages, the report continued, but a 2018 report found that, on average, 25 percent of food bank distributions remain unhealthy. Many food banks have adopted nutrition policies to encourage healthier donations and discourage donations of “junk food,” such as candy and sody, and one in seven formally ban certain unhealthy items.
Improving the nutritional quality of CFS offerings requires prioritizing nutrition across all donation streams, the CSPI report said. Food banks receive most of their inventory from the food industry (60 percent) or the government (23 percent) and purchase the rest.
Federal and state public policies impact both industry and government donation streams. Therefore, policy interventions have great potential to shape the nutritional quality of CFS food.
The report makes a total of 18 recommendations, including:
• USDA should adopt nutrition guidelines for its food distribution programs. Uniform nutrition standards would correct current nutritional quality disparities among USDA programs.
• Congress should increase funding for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) by indexing TEFAP to a more adequate food plan than the Thrifty Food Plan.
• Congress should increase TEFAP Farm to Food Bank funding to at least $25 million.
• Additional states should implement direct-spending programs supporting farm-to-food bank donations. Some states have established or begun to support innovative programs to facilitate farm-to-food bank donation. For example, Pensylvania has PASS, a program that provides state funds to support the harvesting, processing, packaging, and transport of donated food.
• Additional states should implement organic waste bans that prioritize nutritious food donation. New bans should explicitly include edible food donation as an option under the law.
• Congress should amend the Federal Food Donation Act (FFDA) to mandate donation of certain nutritious foods, and states should implement similar statelevel laws.
