The social value of rescuing food, nourishing communities

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the social value food rescue enterprises can create for both their stakeholders and the wider community “in the meantime” whilst longer term solutions to the problems of insecurity and waste are sought. Design/methodology/approach FoodShare, a New Zealand urban-based social enterprise specialising in food redistribution, served as a case study for this research. Semi-structured interviews (n=13) were conducted with FoodShare staff and key stakeholder groups (food donors, financial donors, recipient agencies and volunteers). In addition, an anonymous online survey (n=40) was completed by the wider organisational volunteer network. The interview guides were structured around a new social value evaluation tool, Social Return on Investment, which is increasingly used to demonstrate the impact of such programmes. Deductive methods were used to code the resulting transcripts to identify key outcomes experienced by FoodShare’s stakeholders. Findings The outcomes of FoodShare’s work differed for the various stakeholders. For food donors, outcomes included “more involved relationships with community”, and “improved perceptions of corporate social responsibility”. Identified key outcomes for the financial donors included “key promotional opportunity” and “do something good”. For recipient agencies, important outcomes were “greater volume of food” and “increased reach”. Volunteers reported “meeting new people”, “a sense of accomplishment in helping others” and “learning new skills”. There were also a number of nutritional and environmental outcomes for the wider community. Originality/value Given the dearth of evidence on the societal value that is created in redistributing unsold food to people in need, this novel perspective makes a significant contribution to the literature in this area.

O Valor Social Gerado Por Empresas Sociais: Reflexões a Partir De Uma Meta-Síntese

“…No entanto, para que de fato esses grupos ajudem as empresas sociais a criarem valor social é necessário o comprometimento dos múltiplos atores (Di Domenico et al, 2010;Altinay et al, 2016;Mirosa, Mainvil, Horne & Mangan-Walker, 2016;Ramus & Vaccaro, 2017;Srivetbodee et al, 2017), a criação de critérios para selecionar esses grupos (Ramus & Vaccaro, 2017), o desenvolvimento de capacidades para atrair parceiros com habilidades e capacidades crescentes (Yang et al, 2010;Ramus & Vaccaro, 2017;Altinay et al, 2016), o diálogo com as partes interessadas, a realização de atividades experimentais com os consumidores, a criação de uma relação de confiança entre as partes (Altinay et al, 2016) e o envolvimento dos atores na criação, gestão e governança da empresa social (Henry, 2015).…”

Food banks and food rescue organisations: Damned if they do; damned if they don’t

“…KiwiHarvest Dunedin/Ō tepoti's food rescue organisation, began operating in Dunedin/Ō tepoti in 2012. Established as a social enterprise with a specific focus of operating as a business and reducing food poverty in the community, it quickly became successful in organising Dunedin/ Ō tepoti businesses to donate their excess or food waste (KiwiHarvest, n.d.; Mirosa et al, 2016). Success is measured in terms of food redistributed and environmental savings.…”

“…Success is measured in terms of food redistributed and environmental savings. In their first month of operation, their statistics show they distributed the equivalent of 1,000 meals and by 2015 they were distributing 30,000 per month (Mirosa et al, 2016). This suggests that KiwiHarvest's presence in the Dunedin/Ō tepoti emergency food provision sector is increasingly significant.…”

“…Mirosa et al's (2016) research focused on the added social value of KiwiHarvest for both stakeholders and the community. KiwiHarvest's entry into the emergency ORIGINAL ARTICLE THEORETICAL RESEARCH food provision arena was well organised and appears, from information on their website, and the study by Mirosa et al (2016), to have significantly increased the availability of perishable food to be redistributed to those in need in Dunedin/Ō tepoti. Mirosa et al (2016) view KiwiHarvest as apolitical and see KiwiHarvest as being there in the short term, "...whilst longer-term solutions to the problems of insecurity and waste are sought" (p. 3055).…”

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“…Se, por um lado, se considera que as iniciativas de apoio alimentar têm contribuído para combater a pobreza e a insegurança alimentar, por outro, elas têm vindo a ser alvo de múltiplas críticas, geralmente, relacionadas com os custos para a dignidade humana, com a dependência gerada e com a inadequação nutricional dos alimentos doados. Além disso, os debates promovidos em torno das IAA´s tendem a apontar a ausência de respostas estruturais pensadas a longo prazo que permitam, de forma eficaz, a erradicação dos problemas que visam combater e a emancipação das "vítimas" dos mesmos (Mirosa, Mainvil, Horne e Magan-Walker, 2016;Van der Horst, Pascucci e Bol, 2014;Vlaholias, Thompson, Every e Dawson, 2015). É, justamente, desta aparente incompatibilidade -o crescimento/expansão das IAA´s e as ineficiências que lhes têm vindo a ser apontadas -que surge o projeto em causa.…”