What we're getting wrong in the fight to end hunger

In June of 2017,

I volunteered with a group
at a local food pantry

on the south side of my home city

in Atlanta, Georgia.

It was a Friday afternoon,

the day of their weekly food giveaway.

And as I drove up,

I saw people beginning to arrive,

many with their rolling carts in tow,

prepared to receive
their food supply for the week.

As I was walking in the door,
there were about 40 people outside

waiting in line.

And I was so excited,

because there are very few things
I enjoy more than giving back.

But then, as I entered the room where
the volunteer meeting was taking place,

I immediately realized:

we weren't about to give
these people any real meals.

We were essentially just giving them food.

I took my place on the assembly line,
where -- get this --

I was in charge of making sure
that the Weight Watchers Ding Dongs

made it into every family's bag.

As the bags started to come around,

I'm thinking to myself:

What on earth are we doing here?

Each bag contained
two 20-ounce diet Snapples,

a gallon of barbecue sauce,

a bag of Kettle potato chips,

a box of superhero-shaped
vegetable-enriched macaroni noodles,

a box of Belvita breakfast bars,

a can of refried beans,

a can of sweet peas,

a miniature can of corn,

I can't forget about those Ding Dongs,

and french fried green onions,

you know, the kind that go
on top of a green bean casserole.

And that was it.

We made over a hundred
of those bags that day,

and people indeed
stood in line to receive one.

But a feeling came over me;

I felt bad and a little angry.

It was like, how could I even feel good
about the work that I was doing

when I knew for a fact
that not one meal was to come

from the food we had just given
to over 100 families?

I mean, who wants to have
a meal with barbecue sauce and Ding Dongs?

(Laughter)

And the reality is,

I've been part
of this process all my life.

I've participated in food drives,

I've collected cans since I was a kid,

I've donated in the grocery store
more times than I can count,

I've volunteered at shelters,
I've worked in food pantries,

and I'm sure, like me,
so many of you have, too.

In 2013, I even created
a pop-up restaurant,

called Sunday Soul.

And I rented tables and chairs and linens

and I printed out menus

and I took these experiences to alleyways,

underneath bridges and in parks

to allow people that were
experiencing homelessness

to dine with dignity.

So I've invested in this fight
for quite some time.

In almost every major US city,

the food bank is viewed
as a beloved community institution.

Corporations send volunteers down
on a weekly basis

to sort through food items
and make boxes of food for the needy.

And can drives --

they warm the hearts of schools
and office buildings that participate

and fill the shelves of food banks
and food pantries across the nation.

This is how we work to end hunger.

And what I've come to realize

is that we are doing hunger wrong.

We are doing the same things

over and over and over again

and expecting a different end result.

We've created a cycle

that keeps people dependent on food banks
and pantries on a monthly basis

for food that is often not well-balanced

and certainly doesn't provide them
with a healthy meal.

In the US, our approach to doing good,

or what we call "charity,"

has actually hindered us
from making real progress.

We're educating the world
on how many people are food insecure.

There are television commercials,

billboards,

massive donations,

the engagement of some
of our biggest celebrities in the fight.

But the ever-present reality is that,

even with all of this work,

millions of people are still going hungry.

And we can do better.

Globally, 821 million people are hungry.

That's one in nine people on this planet.

And here in the United States,

nearly 40 million people
experience hunger every single year,

including more than 11 million children

that go to bed hungry every night.

Yet, we're wasting more food
than ever before --

more than 80 billion pounds a year,

to be exact.

The EPA estimates that food waste
has more than doubled

between 1970 and 2017,

and now accounts for 27 percent
of everything in our landfills.

And as this food sits,
it gradually rots

and produces harmful methane gas,

a leading contributor
to global climate change.

We have the waste of the food itself,

the waste of all the money associated
with producing this now-wasted food

and the waste of labor
with all of the above.

And then there's the social inequity

between people who really
need food and can't get it

and people who have too much
and simply throw it away.

All of this made me realize
that hunger was not an issue of scarcity,

but rather a matter of logistics.

So in 2017, I set out
to end hunger using technology.

After all, food delivery apps
had begun to explode on the scene,

and I thought surely we can
reverse-engineer this technology

and get food from businesses
like restaurants and grocery stores

and into the hands of people in need.

I believe that technology and innovation

have the power to solve real problems,

especially hunger.

So in 2017, I created an app

that would inventory everything
that a business sells

and make it super easy for them
to donate this excess food

that would typically go to waste
at the end of the night.

All the user has to do now
is click on an item,

tell us how many they have to donate,

and our platform calculates
the weight and the tax value

of those items at time of donation.

We then connect with local drivers
in the shared economy

to get this food picked up
and delivered directly to the doors

of nonprofit organizations
and people in need.

I provided the data and the analytics

to help businesses reduce
food waste at the source

by letting them know the items
that they waste repeatedly

on a regular basis,

and they even saved millions of dollars.

Our mission was simple:

feed more, waste less.

And by 2018, our clients included
the world's busiest airport,

Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson,

and we were working
with brands and corporations

like Hormel, Chick-fil-A, and Papa John's.

We even had the opportunity
to work with the NFL for Super Bowl LIII.

And over the last two years,
we've worked with over 200 business

to divert more than two million pounds
of edible food from landfills

into the hands of people
that needed it most.

(Applause)

Thank you.

(Applause)

This has accounted
for about 1.7 million meals

and allowed us to start to expand
our efforts to other cities,

like Washington, DC, Chicago,
Miami, Philadelphia and more.

That's just one approach
that actually tackles the problem.

Another was the launch
of our pop-up grocery stores.

We recover excess food from businesses

and set up free community grocery stores
right in the middle of food deserts.

We bring out a chef,

and we do on-site taste-testings and allow
families to leave with recipe cards.

We give every family reusable grocery bags
and allow to simply shop

minus the price tag.

We wanted to give people access to meals

and not just food.

We wanted to change the way that we think
and work to solve hunger in this country,

get people to believe
that we can solve hunger,

not as a nonprofit,

not as a food bank,

but as a social enterprise,

with the goal of reducing waste
and ending hunger.

But it hasn't been as easy as I thought

to change the narrative
and the thought process

on how we think that hunger can be solved.

In 2016, France became the first country

to ban supermarkets
from throwing away unused food.

Instead, they must donate it,

and they're fined if they don't.

Yes.

(Applause)

In 2017, Italy followed suit,

becoming the second European nation

to pass an anti-food-waste ban.

And they stated it so simply
as it was passed through legislation:

"We have millions of pounds
of good food going to waste,

and we have poor people
that are going hungry."

That simple.

Denmark now has a mandated
food waste grocery store.

It's named Wefood.

They recover excess food
from local grocery stores

and sell it at up to
a 50 percent off discount.

They then use all the proceeds
and donate it to emergency aid programs

and social need issues
for the people in need.

It has been hailed as
"the Goodwill of grocery."

And last year, the world got its first
pay-what-you-can grocery store,

when Feed it Forward opened in Toronto.

Their shelves remain stocked
by recovering excess food

from major supermarkets

and allowing families
to simply pay what they can

at their grocery store.

This is amazing.

This innovation we need more of.

Everyone can take on the roles
of changing the attitudes

about how we solve hunger.

When we think of how we've allowed
innovation and technology

to change our lives,

from how we communicate with each other

to how we view our entertainment

to how we even receive food,

it's amazing that we haven't
solved hunger yet.

We literally have cars
that can drive themselves

and millions of people
that cannot feed themselves.

With millions of dollars being donated
to end food insecurity,

we should've solved hunger years ago.

And I asked myself --

(Applause)

I asked myself, why can't we
escape this vicious cycle?

Why haven't we solved this problem?

I remember meeting with investors
and pitching the idea,

trying to raise funds for my business,

and one of them said to me
in true seriousness,

"Hunger is already being solved,"

as if millions of people weren't going
to go to bed hungry that very night,

and as if there was nothing else to do.

And the reality is,

one would think
that hunger is being solved,

but the truth is, it's being worked on.

If we really want to solve hunger,

then we have to change
the way we've been doing it.

The same actions will always
garner the same results.

There are hundreds of social
entrepreneurs all over the world.

They have a focus to solve
really big problems, like hunger,

but they'll never get the same support

that we give national hunger-fighting
organizations and food banks.

But, if given the opportunity,

they have the ability to foster insight

and perhaps be forward-thinking enough

to solve this problem.

That's why I'm traveling the world

and I'm really talking about
what hunger looks like in America

and explaining the difference between
giving people access to food

and access to meals.

I've been meeting
with city council members

and city organizers across the US

and telling them that technology
indeed does have the power

to connect businesses with surplus food

to people in need,

and explaining to them
what a meal can actually mean to a family.

I've been meeting with school boards
and school districts

to talk about how we feed hungry children,

and health care organizations,

sharing the message that food is health,

and food is life,

and that, by solving hunger,
we can solve so many more problems.

So if we want to know

that we don't live in a nation

where perfectly good food goes to waste

when our neighbors don't have food to eat,

then we need to change the laws.

We need to introduce new policies,

and, most importantly, we need to change
our minds and our actions.

Food drives are fine.

Food banks serve a huge purpose.

And yes, sometimes I like Ding Dongs, too.

But the reality is that food drives
do not solve hunger.

And if we're smart
about connecting the dots

that are right in front of our noses,

we can do far more than give a family

a box of superhero-shaped
vegetable-enriched macaroni noodles

and a gallon of barbecue sauce

to feed themselves.

Instead, we can
give them back their dignity.

Perhaps we can increase
school attendance in schools.

We can improve the health
outcomes for millions.

And, most importantly, we can reduce
food waste in our landfills,

creating a better
environment for all of us.

The thing I love most is that
we can feel good about it in the process.

If we solve hunger,

we have nothing to lose
and everything to gain.

So let's do it.

Thank you.

(Applause)

Thank you.