Carolyn Schnare:
Welcome to Convenience Matters. I’m Carolyn Schnare with NACS.

Jeff Lenard:
And I’m Jeff Lenard with NACS. And Carolyn, we’ve talked about Feeding America, we’ve met Feeding America over the last half-decade or longer. We started when we were going to Partnership for Healthier America meetings. We’d see that convenience stores we’re signing up commitments with PHA, Partnership for Healthier America. And we saw that Feeding America and their food banks were doing the same. And that was probably our first introduction on a much more detailed scale and what we’ve worked with Feeding America and started to find out how can we work more in communities. So I think it’s great today we have Danielle Lawson and she’s the Account Manager of Supply Chain for Feeding America, walking us through some of the things that Feeding America is doing and how it relates to not just our retailer members, but also our supplier members. So welcome Danielle.

Danielle Lawson:
Thank you so much. It’s great to be here. I appreciate you having me.

Jeff Lenard:
And with that long introduction, I just wanted, we know a lot about Feeding America. So before we try to explain our version of having worked and talked to you guys over the last half dozen or so years, why don’t you just give everybody out there just a quick overview of what Feeding America is and why it relates to our industry?

Danielle Lawson:
Feeding America is the nation’s largest charitable hunger relief organization domestically, and we are a network of over about 200 food bank members and then over 60,000 program members through those food banks. So those might be food pantries, meal sites and meal programs, some are feeding organizations like that. So we work together as a network to basicall…our vision is to eliminate hunger. So we work to provide food for those who are struggling with food insecurity. We also work on other types of advocacy issues and food waste issues. So we’re, we’re hitting it on all the points.

Carolyn Schnare:
Aw, that’s for sure. And you know, this pandemic has done nothing more if not accelerate the need for for helping folks, too. But if, if I can take one quick step back something that I didn’t know the of, and you helped when we were talking a little while ago, the difference between food bank, food pantry, food agency, you said some of those words earlier, do you mind just real quick going over what all those those words mean?

Danielle Lawson:
Sure. Yeah. So Feeding America is kind of like NACS. Actually. We are the national organization and then our members, the food banks are like a distribution center in most cases. So they have the warehouses and the trucking. They have the staff doing the procurement and then their customers, if you will, are much like the food or the food pantries or food shelves, soup kitchens, they are the people that are in the community serving those in need where there are some food banks that have an onsite food pantry or food distribution model, not all do, but so then our partners are the food pantries that do that. And those are often what you think of as maybe in, you know a community center or hosted at a church or something like that.

Jeff Lenard:
And Carolyn, you mentioned that the pandemic accelerated some of the issues and if we can kind of walk through, Danielle, what’s the pandemic caused in terms of the need for food insecurity and also food insecurity essentially means that you’re not sure where your next meal is coming from. It’s a term that’s a little bit like hunger, but it’s just the uncertainty that if you will have breakfast, lunch, dinner, etcetera, and that that’s pretty terrifying when you think about it, but can you kind of walk us through what the pandemic has done in terms of need?

Danielle Lawson:
Yeah, absolutely. So last year throughout our network we served approximately 40 to 42 million Americans and that is reaching people in every county in the U.S.. And we helped with 20…no, it’s 232 million meals through the SNAP application assistance. SNAP is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or food stamps in some areas. And so that has really shined a light on people who were already struggling. They were already challenged monthly, and then added to that additional people that have experienced food security even for the first time. So we really did see an increase and that continues to be something that we see. It will be a challenge for people to recover from for several years. This isn’t probably gonna be something that we solve yet this year.

Carolyn Schnare:
Yeah. That’s…I mean, you can’t go, maybe it’s my newsfeed, but you can’t go a minute without seeing something about someone in need in the community. So speaking of communities, I want to take another look at what….wel, let’s talk about you actually, Let’s talk about where you came from. So Feeding America, as Jeff mentioned, we’ve worked at food banks, we’ve worked with the national organization a little bit, we’ve worked in some of the local ones, we visited the Chicago Area Food Bank…

Jeff Lenard:
Atlanta, Las Vegas, every time we have a NACS Show our, our friends at Tyson donate a truckload of protein. And after the NACS Show usually there’s a gleaning where the, the items that are not used on the actual floor are brought to the local food bank. So that’s just one insight we have and, of course you see there’s kitchens there, there’s learning centers and it goes well beyond just the food. It’s a way to introduce people to the idea that there’s somebody there looking out for them when they’re facing the food insecurity issue.

Carolyn Schnare:
And you worked at at one of the, or you headed up one of those food banks. So I just wanted to hear a little bit about you and then also I think you worked with some of our convenience store partners, if I’m not mistaken.

Danielle Lawson:
Yeah, I did. So I’ve been with Feeding America just only for a couple of months now. Working on that national level. So working with the corporate offices or a sustainability champion or something at places like Kwik Trip and Maverik and 7-Eleven. So yeah, I’ve been those are my current accounts, some of them but I came from almost nine years working at Second Harvest Food Bank of Southern Wisconsin. So one of Feeding America’s member, food banks based in Madison, Wisconsin andI was with them as food resource manager. So I did manage basically all of the inbound food whether it was donated or purchased from our retail and convenience store partners, from agriculture partners, farmer,s manufacturing partners. And then, and then we did have a small budget to purchase some things to kind of round out the selections. Yeah. So I was excited to be there. I started there in 2012 and it was 2013 when we rolled out the program for donations from the Kwik Trip stores at the time, it was, I want to say around 80 stores. And we did that in the span of really just over a month. So it was a quick turnaround. But they’d been piloting with another one of our member food banks. So they had some of the kinks figured out .

Jeff Lenard:
And that’s of course KT. Now in our industry, it’s like, you have to…with Kwik Trip and QuikTrip and Quick Chek and Kwik Chek, there’s all kinds of various spellings misspellings. But yeah, that’s the KT- Kwik . Yes. And related to your work in the food banks has it changed at all? I know the phrase that we’ve heard is food pantry and most of the things that convenience stores sell are for immediate consumption. It tends to be immediate consumption snack, and then other items are fresh and perishable. And has there been more of a evolution towards more convenience items and the need for that and food banks, as opposed to things that you think well, that would go in the pantry and maybe doesn’t get used. It’s a big thing of cereal or something like that, but there’s more of a need, I believe for convenience items and that’s might be where our industry fits in a much better.

Danielle Lawson:
Yeah. I think when a lot of people think about what to donate to their local food pantry or to the food bank, automatically cans and boxes spring to mind. Those are typically the things that had a longer shelf life and wouldn’t go to waste in someone’s home. So that was, pretty common, which you would put in a food drive barrel, right? There’s no refrigeration when you drop that off at the library or at the grocery store. But really since maybe about 2009, our work really has changed a lot and we’ve focused a lot more on perishable itemsm more nutrition focused items like produce and vegetables, dairy products, meat all of those things, because we do focus a lot on nutrition and health as well, because we want to address really holistically the need. And so we’ve worked over the last, oh gosh, several years to build the capacity for food pantries to be able to handle those types of items. And what we’re hearing from neighbors that do receive food from a pantry or a food shelf is that it saves them time. It saves them money and time when they can have access to something that maybe is either already a prepared meal, like a pan of macaroni and cheese or lasagna or stew, or whether it’s items that are convenience items that they can just add to something existing that they might already have otherwise. And time and money for food, for other items, is a valuable resource that a lot of people that we’re serving, they don’t have extra of that.

Jeff Lenard:
Yeah. And that’s people, they may have two jobs and still not enough to make ends meet and convenience is essential. How quick can you turn around something that comes in that’s perishable and have it in people’s homes or as consumed food? I assume it has to be pretty quick.

Danielle Lawson:
Most of the way that we work with a lot of the our donation partners, they use a program that we have called MealConnect. And this is an app and we can talk more about that, but essentially what happens is that gets posted and an algorithm looks at the nearest partner that is available to pick that donation up. It can be posted and picked up in the span of an hour. and maybe that receiving organization is able to serve an individual yet that day. So it could be under 24 hours that that can be in someone’s home.

Carolyn Schnare:
So it’s like Craigslist for food.

Danielle Lawson:
It is a little bit!

Carolyn Schnare:
Or some of those other apps. That’s really cool. ‘Cause I think so if you’re Kwik Trip , you’re big, you might even have somebody or there are people that are devoted to helping with that program, but MealConnect, I think if I’ve heard – because I’ve heard it on my local radio station here in DC, even they’ve been talking a little bit more about it – is that someone who doesn’t deliver or have regular donations who might only have something leftover because maybe they were holding a charity race in town and they have a couple dozen bottles of water left or there’s just too much, too many donuts or something, I don’t know, but it doesn’t have to be a regular donation nor do you have to have a contract or a whole setup with Feeding America, right?

Danielle Lawson:
Yeah, you touched on one aspect. You can work with a local food bank or food pantry and schedule weekly, twice weekly pickups, whatever that looks like as far as your storage space maybe that’s for product, that’s getting short dated things that don’t rotate as quickly perishable and non-perishable. And then there are, like you described Carolyn, more of those situations where you maybe have something extra from a misshipment, or as you say, some extras that you were holding, and that is handled a little bit differently through MealConnect and that can be a one-time. The tagline that we have is that it is ‘food recovery simplified.’ So it’s really just about going on to…whether it’s an app on your phone or your iPad or onto your desktop and posting in with your zip code and choosing a couple of categories saying how much weight it is and then posting it and that’s how quick it can happen.

Jeff Lenard:
I saw that in action a couple of years ago was visiting a retailer who had some excess product and said, Hey there’s a way to do this. And it was like, really? It’s that easy? You have the Bill Emerson, I believe it is, the waiver where you’re not held liable. You’re given protection and it really is that simple. And it can be one time. It’s not like one of these things where once you do it once, then, then there’s some sort of contract or something like that. It was very, very impressed by how it all worked. But it also fits to something else that we’re seeing more and more the value of CSR, or even when you talk more broadly about things like ESG. And I know we’re in Washington, we like those three-letter acronyms, but basically it’s about corporate social responsibility. And that’s just a more important element of how people look at shopping. Both, whether you’re a supplier or you’re a retailer, in some cases you see annual reports that are more about what are you doing for the community as much as what are you doing with the bottom line. So I think it’s increasingly important in how do you tell your story to the broader community? And I assume that’s another thing that you can work with anybody who’s working with you to share ideas on how to tell those stories.

Danielle Lawson:
And you mentioned the community and I’d like to also add the, the environment. It’s just the responsible thing to do right now, reducing waste. And you look at the food hierarchy through the EPA and it is diverting waste out of landfills is so important too. Last year alone, Feeding America members distributed over 1.8 billion pounds of fresh produce and if you think about the numbers that we see of food waste and I’ve seen numbers as high as 40% of overall food is not used, it goes to waste. And that’s through home use, restaurant use, store from the whole food supply chain, but that’s a big number and we really work hard and try to propose to our partners that we are a business solution in addition to being just the right thing to do. But it does add help for employee morale to know that they don’t have people dumping food that they know their neighbors, the people they know in their community because we know a lot of community stores are pillars in their community. Most people know everyone who comes in and who works there and to not to have to throw that food away can sometimes can be really frustrating for people.

Carolyn Schnare:
So yeah, we know a lot of of communities, you know your employees, but you also need to know that you tell your communities that as well, put signage in the window or let them know that you are donating to Feeding America and it just might make people come to your store a little bit more knowing that your money, your help, your being there is helping giving back to the community.

Jeff Lenard:
And it’s local. I think, in particular, we’ve done all kinds of surveys with consumers, with retailers, and it comes down to local how you are helping the local folks. And there’s probably countless stories that you hear about how people just say, you don’t know what a difference you made when I needed it. And boy that really helped me out and I’ll never forget it. And boy, it also helps out in how I make buying decisions now.

Danielle Lawson:
In fact, if I could share one, one experience, I will never forget and it was when I was working at Second Harvest and helping with a food distribution and I had been at one of our food donors the day before where I helped them determine some items that could be donated and included in that was a case of peaches. And the next day at the distribution of chose the station where I was distributing the fruit and I had these peaches and I did give them to a gentleman coming through. And he shared with me that he had gone to the grocery store the day before and had peaches in his cart and he ended up taking them out. He said, “I knew that that was just going to put me over my, my budget for the day and I wasn’t able to keep those peaches in.” And he was so grateful to have some peaches that day when we were doing the distribution and that has really stuck with me. And there…we all have hard days. And there are days I remember that gentlemen who I don’t, remember what he looked like and I certainly didn’t know who he was at the time, but he has really stayed with me throughout my career.

Carolyn Schnare:
It’s the unexpected surprises too, right? It’s beauty of fresh really. I mean the items, there’s a difference between canned peaches and real peaches, but in addition to that, it’s nice because some of these families don’t have that luxury of having real peaches everyday. So, it goes back to where you said, it’s donating fresh foods. It’s more than just cans and boxes and and bottles that are nearing expiration. It’s, real good stuff that someone’s gonna want. It doesn’t need to land in a landfill. Let me ask one thing too. I know you said you’ve worked with Kwik Trip and Kum & Go and I’ve talked to them extensively on different ways they run their program, but maybe you can share with everybody a little bit, some best practices from some of those folks, like someone who’s just getting started listening to this. What are some of the things that best-in-class, or I shouldn’t say best-in-class retailers, who work with Feeding America, who’ve done a really good job of it. Some of the things that they’ve said to you, this really works, I’m glad we have this program in place or this thing that we do makes it that much easier for our employees and on your agency picking up the food or delivering it.

Danielle Lawson:
So if someone is interested in having a program where we do have more ongoing or regular pickups I think one of the best things they can start with is just determining internally what a standard operating procedure or SOP protocol might look like, what types of items are eligible for donation in their store documenting that and then of course training staff on that so that they’re aware, also. And so then as they’re doing their polls at night or restocking the shelves, they know what to look for. They can be marking UPCs if that’s something that that retailer would like to do as far as inventory control in that regard. And then just setting it aside in a spot, in a location in the store. Most often we see plastic food safe plastic bins that are used to just kind of designate in a location, one in a dry area, one in the freezer are and then maybe one in the cooler as well. A lot of things end up going into the freezer to just hold a little bit longer. Meat, for example, usually is picked up frozen but certainly if there’s dairy or something like that, yogurt, that can be in the cooler and then really just maintaining an open line of communication with the food bank or the food pantry that’s doing the pickups and just having that regular schedule and that way the store employees know when they’ll be next there to pick up and they understand what that rotation will be.

Jeff Lenard:
The one thing that retailers will talk about is – particularly coming out of the pandemic – they’ll say the hardest thing to change is someone’s routine. That’s true once people start commuting back to work, that is true about everything in life and it takes repetition a week or two or three. And then all of a sudden there’s a new routine. And with stores, it takes a little while to think differently that, okay, now we need to set up a donation program, but it doesn’t have to necessarily be that complicated. Like you’re committing, let’s do this over a couple couple of weeks, let’s test it out, test and learn, see how you can get better, then maybe go back and think about how you might do a broader program. Are there any limits to how much can be donated? And I’ll explain that in two different ways. One is in terms of volume the amount of food and the other is in type of product. We had talked about fresh, but are there…is it more challenging to take something off the warmer, cool it down and deliver it, or is it better to look at things that may come out of the cold vault or a fresh case or something like that, that doesn’t go through temperature extremes?

Danielle Lawson:
Yeah, those are some really good questions because we do focus a lot on food safety. So let me answer the first part about volumes. And we like to say, that no donation is too big or too small, right. If there’s a lot of something that one program feels like they won’t be able to use in a good amount of time, we do work as a network so that we can reach out to someone nearby and say, “hey, can you use this as well, we have surplus this week or something.” As far as the food safety aspects go, anything that has been out for service that is not wrapped would not be eligible and your food bank or the MealConnect team can work with people on understanding really what that is, what those types of things are. We do also need to at least kind of have access to knowing what ingredients are in different items so that we can address any allergens that we need to be aware of. Other than that, those restrictions even if something’s been warmed, but wrapped that can be cooled and either stored in the cooler or frozen and donated as well. So just, it can be hot food, cold food, frozen food, and really there are a lot of food banks, most food banks…well, let’s just say all food banks have probably their own rules, I guess I would say, or their own items that they accept or don’t accept. But most will take things like donuts and bakery and cookies up to an amount. They may have to have a certain amount that they can’t take more of but we would encourage folks to just work together to establish what items a particular food bank may or may not accept in terms of you know, different types of nutrition value, or energy drinks or things like that. Some of those maybe are a little trickier.

Jeff Lenard:
Yeah. And I had mentioned that the idea of routine, and I think traditionally, when you think about donations, you’re thinking about, ‘I have something in the store and I need to do something with it immediately.’ But before that, I would imagine that there’s the ability to just contact a local food bank and say, “Hey, I’m going to be…I have some free time this week or something like that. Can we just come chat and maybe talk about what’s available or just kind of walk us through before it comes down to, we need to do something in this next couple of hours.” And that’s probably where some of the best working relations ships come from, because it’s like, ‘oh, I didn’t even think about that one.’

Danielle Lawson:
Yeah, Feedingamerica.org and you can do find a food bank and you can find a member in your zip code or the nearest your zip code. And most food banks will have a food resource staff person that can either give you a call or come by and talk through what that looks like. But again, I wouldn’t discourage anyone who has that last minute thing to think about donating that and that’s where the MealConnect app does come in handy. And I want to mention that that is a free app. There is no cost to that. There’s no percent that gets taken out for charging for fuel or anything. That’s usually picked up right away by a volunteer from a food pantry or through the food bank with their own trucks. So there’s no cost to anyone who’s posting a donation on that. And you know, another thing we didn’t really about, but while I’m talking money one of the features on the MealConnect app is you can look at what your possible tax incentives at the end of the year. You can upload some information from that as well. Obviously you want to talk to your accounting person and all that.

Carolyn Schnare:
Where do you get the MealConnect app?

Danielle Lawson:
You can get that either for iOS Apple or Google Play and that can be, again, as I said, it’s iPad as well as phone or MealConnect.org. You can post or look that up there.

Carolyn Schnare:
That’s really cool. We’ll make sure that we put all those websites and addresses and places you can get things in the show notes for the for this episode. I guess my last thought would be is how do people get in touch with you?

Danielle Lawson:
My email at Feeding America, of course, Is my first name and last name all mashed together, [email protected] or even MealConnect can be [email protected] and I should note that MealConnect, I don’t know why, but it’s all one word all smashed together. We like to smash stuff together.

Carolyn Schnare:
Danielle, you made me think of one last thing. I say one more question. I’m turning into Jeff here – One more thing! Besides finding you, I think you and I talked just before the show, you said there were some cities that are particularly working very closely with to make sure MealConnect rolls out to help it move along. Do you mind listing off the ones off the top of your head? And if anyone listening is in one of those cities would like to really please try this out and make sure we can get it rolling. That would be awesome.

Danielle Lawson:
Sure. Yeah. We’re excited, we’re working with some of our food bank members in some markets that they have really just gone gangbusters with this MealConnect app. And so we are doing extra marketing push with radio spots and TV ads. We’ve got print assets, window clings all kinds of different things, back room employee posters. And so those areas are Minneapolis, San Diego Lexington, Washington DC, as you’ve already heard Carolyn, New Orleans Mesa, Memphis, Springfield Illinois, Tampa Bay, and Fort Pierce. And of course it’s available in areas besides those, that’s just where we’re doing this test pilot for some marketing. .

Carolyn Schnare:
Well, there you go. If you heard your city in there, join up today. And if you didn’t, join up today anyway. This has really been eyeopening. A lot of really cool things and industry-specific things. I think the convenience store industry can certainly use to not only grow with their help with their business needs, but also those in the community. So I really appreciate your time today, Danielle, and thank you for listening to Convenience Matters.

Convenience Matters Outro:
[Music] Convenience Matters is brought to you by NACS and produced in partnership with Human Factor. For more information, visit convenience.org.

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