Connecting communities - directing surplus food with the food deserts of Los Angeles

Food insecurity and access to basic needs

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

Food insecurity continues to increase by 6% in 2023 – 3 in 10 Los Angeles County households need affordable and healthful food. Among low-income households in communities of color, food insecurity is now higher than the pre-pandemic level. Additionally, 4 in 10 households with children are food insecure. For more than a decade, FoodCycle has been working to create systemic change and address food insecurity, climate change and other connected issues. This project will build upon earlier efforts and address existing gaps resulting in surplus food going to feed landfills instead of food-insecure communities. FoodCycle’s existing network of stakeholders includes local jurisdictions, more than 418 participating businesses, and 300 partnering community-based nonprofits. These existing partnerships have diverted 22 million pounds of food during the past five years. This expanded network will endure beyond the life of this project and can serve as a model for other communities.

The purpose of this project is to address identified gaps in the food recovery system and develop a systematic approach to reducing food waste in Los Angeles County. This project will consider the environmental, societal, and economic impacts of reducing food waste by developing a comprehensive strategy and systems approach that integrates recovered food into the food supply chain. It will continue to build a collaborative network of government, businesses, and nonprofit stakeholders. This project focuses on leveraging innovative technology like an app that helps track donations, electric vehicles and solar powered industrial refrigeration units that can be shared collectively by our partners. It will build out collaborative networks in order to create systemic change and connect historically underserved communities to additional resources. FoodCycle will create outreach and evaluation tools to give a voice to the communities that they serve and will actively work to elicit their input on their needs. We will focus on the health and economic benefits that come through increased access to healthy foods.

We believe that by working collaboratively with businesses, local government, and community partners, we can address food insecurity, increase access to healthy food, and link a multitude of services that can improve the lives of our neighbors. Our work is focused on creating systemic change and using food as medicine to help heal both individuals and communities. We anticipate bringing together a wide range of stakeholders who will work together to increase their collective impact. We will bring public awareness to the related issues of food waste and climate change. Our use of volunteers to help collect food can empower individuals to take action to address climate change. We believe that by engaging the public, working together, and thinking outside the box, we will be able to address some of the biggest problems facing our city, our nation and the planet. We're committed to creating solutions that benefit all Angelenos.

FoodCycle collaborates with partners throughout LA County to divert food from landfills and redistribute to food insecure communities. This project expands an earlier transportation pilot that allowed us to serve more than 26 million meals since 2019, proving the success of our model. Using innovative technology enables us to be at the cutting edge, providing real-time data through our Careit App and having a baseline of work being done in the community, while allowing us to coordinate the logistics of receiving and distributing donations promptly, eliminating confusion and waste. It helps us review our program quantitatively and assess how to grow. We create reports for our stakeholders in order to communicate with them the details of our impact, and if we are meeting our objectives and goals. We have an administrative position dedicated to data collection and communications with our partners. We believe it is critical to give a voice to historically underserved communities.
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Partners include businesses that donate surplus food and community based nonprofit organizations that distribute food t