World-famous coffee shop, Starbucks announced on Tuesday, March 22, that it will have a program that will donate 100% of the unsold food to charity which will help minimize their waste also to help the needy in America.
Starbucks will donate all their left unsold food in partnership with non-profit organizations Feeding America and Food Donation Connection.
Feeding America is a non-profit organization that has a mission to “feed America’s hungry through a nationwide network of member food banks and engage our country in the fight to end hunger.”
These two charity institutions will be arranging how Starbucks can donate perishable, unsold, ready-to-eat food from the 7600 stores that will be stored in food banks nationwide. The food will be picked up by refrigerated vans across the country.
According to the Food Donation Collection, about 25-40 percent of the food being prepared by Americans are being thrown away. And it according to the US Department of Agriculture, America produces about 96 billion pounds of food waste per year.
Starbucks new program was expected to help ease the hardship of scarcity of food in many Americans and also, to minimize their contribution to food waste. Such a great idea!
“This food is going to make a difference, whether it’s a child not going hungry for the night or a family that’s able to enjoy a protein plate that they would not have otherwise been able to afford at Starbucks,” said Starbucks store manager Kienan McFadden As quoted in Mashable.
The coffee shop giant has been donating unsold food since 2010. But, it didn’t have a consistent process to do it.
This whole idea was actually an idea that came from baristas on the counter according to an article in CNN.
“Our people just felt so badly. And this has been going on for quite some time. And so we started doing our homework– municipality by municipality,” said Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz as quoted by CNN.
“I’m always trying to educate myself on the current social issues of our time. And one of them is the fact that there are so many people in America that do not have the next meal to eat,” the CEO added.
Starbucks has been aiming to reach about 50 million people to be given food donation by the year 2021.
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Sources:
Mashable
CNN Philippines
Huffingtonpost