Starbucks has announced a revolutionary food donation program, promising to provide nearly 5 million meals for struggling families in the first year alone.
On Tuesday, Starbucks revealed that its new FoodShare program has already set a goal to donate 100% of its still safe to eat food from each one of its 7,600 U.S. locations.
FoodShare will partner with Food Donation Connection and the nonprofit Feeding America to reach these lofty goals.
According to the announcement, all perishable food will be picked up by refrigerated vans each day and delivered to local food banks.
This means that paninis, breakfast sandwiches, salads, and “bistro boxes”—prepackaged meals that come with snacks like fruit, wraps, hummus, and vegetables—will no longer be tossed out at the end of the day.
"The challenge was finding a way to preserve the food’s quality during delivery," Jane Maly, brand manager on the Starbucks Food team, said in a company statement. "We focused on maintaining the temperature, texture and flavor of the surplus food, so when it reached a person in need, they could safely enjoy it."
If all goes well, Starbucks hopes they can get other restaurants on board with the program; and ultimately, the coffee chain would like to dispatch their refrigerated vans to those locations to eliminate as much food waste as possible.
Feeding America estimates that the U.S. alone wastes about 70 billion pounds of food each year, even though much of that could help others in need.
By 2021, Starbucks aims to give away 50 million meals to those who don’t have enough to eat at home.
