Food Insecurity in the United States

Over the past few weeks, I have focused on turning in assignments for my program. One of the assignments that have taken the most time and much of my attention is a Human-Centered Design (HCD) group project. The goal of the project was to address an issue within our community and create a potential solution that addresses the faults of the current systems in place. It is our responsibility to create a thoughtful and humane way to decrease or lessen the burden of the issue we decide to address. My group decided to address the issue of food insecurity in Boston, MA, and the United States.

The first phase of the HCD project is Discovery: We have a challenge. How do we approach it? During this phase, I did research on the current data of food insecurity across the nation. I found that the United States annually throws out 72 billion pounds of food (Feeding America, 2021). There are over 42 million people across the nation who do not know where their next meal will come from or if they will get one, yet billions of pounds of food are thrown away. According to The Greater Boston Food Bank, I found that prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, 1 in 11 people were food insecure and now that ratio is 1 in 7 people.

 

Apart from stating why I believed it was an imminent issue we should address; I did more research on how groceries manage their surplus of food and the current system. The Center for Biological Diversity rated major grocery stores for their handling of food waste, with almost every single one receiving an F. One of the stores that my group focused on was Trader Joe’s. The grocery store currently runs a Neighborhood Shares Program which focuses on donating 100% of products that are not sold but are still safe for consumption. Last year, Trader Joe’s donated about $345 million worth of produce, fresh produce, and drinks equating to about 69 million meals across the United States.

 

I was curious as to why other grocery stores were not replicating Trader Joe’s model. While there were few stores that conducted a similar system, many companies and stores believed the process to be too complicated, time-consuming, and unprofitable. To conduct an efficient system, stores may need to hire more people or pay people to complete additional work from their daily duties. In addition, many stores stated that they did not want to be held liable if someone became sick due to the food they ingested. While I also believed there was a law prohibiting companies from giving people food, I found out that the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act offers them protection. Congress passed this act in 1996 where companies would not be held liable.

In the end, we came up with the plan shown in the picture. The top row shows the current system of supermarkets discarding their food in the trash which eventually ends in landfills. The prototype that my group came up with was the creation of a Secondhand Food Store where people could purchase food that has passed its “sell-by” date but is still good to eat. When I volunteered at the Houston Food Bank, I learned that many products were still edible to eat based on the type of food it is. The grocery store would sell the products at reduced rates. Not only will stores create a more sustainable option to reduce food waste, but also alleviate food insecurity in Boston.