To address America’s urgent hunger crisis, Feeding America collaborates with national partners to rescue food and ensure it goes to its highest and best use: providing nourishment for people facing hunger. In 2023, 47 million people—including over 14 million children—experienced food insecurity. This reality persists while nearly 92 billion pounds of food go to waste each year.
Feeding America—the largest food rescue organization in the U.S.—has a goal to rescue 1 billion more pounds of food by the end of 2025 to reduce food insecurity rates. Achieving this goal requires strategic partnerships and innovative solutions to enhance food rescue capacity across the Feeding America network, which rescued 3.96 billion pounds of food that would have otherwise gone to waste in fiscal year 2023, alone.
Dedicated supporters like General Mills—a Feeding America founding partner and a Visionary partner and one of the generous lead partners to invest in the new Food Rescue Fund—help us expand and elevate the transformative work the network is undertaking to rescue and distribute more food to more people. The support General Mills provides helps alleviate hunger in communities across the country, minimizes food waste, and equitably increases food access for people facing hunger.
“Rooted in our partnership with Feeding America is our belief that families and communities should be food secure and free from hunger,” said Nicola Dixon, Director, Global Impact at General Mills. “Feeding America listens to the voices of the community to develop strategies and innovative solutions to alleviate hunger, identifying where the biggest impact can be made.”
Co-creating Lasting Community Impact with Fellow Donors and Partners
General Mills takes a multi-faceted approach to food rescue and is continuously working to expand its food surplus recovery impact. They invest in organizations like Feeding America that help manufacturers, grocers, restaurants, distributors and trucking companies donate surplus food to people in need. Among the many significant investments that General Mills makes to support our work is through our Equitable Food Access grants. The grants are helping to strengthen food bank capacity and address racial disparities across the U.S. through a myriad of interventions that improve access to nutritious food among population groups experiencing disparate access and the highest rates of food insecurity. By pooling multiple donor grant opportunities with a similar goal of improving equitable access to food, Feeding America can more efficiently execute donor investments and increase impact for groups disproportionately affected by hunger through integrated approaches.
“By supporting the Equitable Food Access grants program, General Mills can have an even greater impact as our giving can be coupled alongside support from other donors, enabling wider community reach and the potential for deeper, longer-lasting impact,” Dixon said.
Also key, Dixon said, is that the multi-donor approach to grantmaking centers the needs of communities facing hunger and the essential role food banks play in extending access to food and other essential resources.
Rescuing More Food Requires Increased Innovation, Technology and Capacity
Feeding America sources millions of pounds of food each year in many ways to help ensure everyone in our country has enough to eat, including leveraging innovative approaches, like our foundational technology MealConnect®. In February 2024, General Mills was named the winner of the 2024 Supply Chain Award for Social Impact by Gartner, which annually recognizes supply chain innovations with lasting impact. General Mills was awarded for its support and partnership with Feeding America to develop and scale MealConnect, which is available nationwide at no cost for all food businesses to connect with local food banks and feeding programs, making it easy to donate food and coordinate logistics.
“It’s been incredible to see the large impact MealConnect has already had,” Dixon said.
In fiscal year 2023 alone, the program rescued over 1 billion meals. Since its inception in 2014, MealConnect has helped rescue 6 billion pounds of food. In addition, MealConnect allows food banks to collaborate in food sourcing and food redistribution in new ways, engage more donors, reduce transportation costs and ultimately increase access to nutritious food in communities everywhere.
