Abstract
Within the current economic situation, poverty indexes in developed countries are becoming more and more alarming. This makes the role of food banks very relevant, and in addition contributes towards reducing the problem of food waste. Motivated by the social importance of these non-profit organizations, this paper analyzes the impact of food banks on the supply chains to which they belong. Differences in the functioning of these supply chains are highlighted attending to the relations induced by the food banks. First, the international research background for this topic is summarized; then, the results of an empirical study in Spain are presented. Data were collected through surveys and analyzed using cluster methodology. Two different types of food bank were identified. These are described, characterized, and compared in terms of efficacy and efficiency.
Highlights
Extreme poverty, defined as the lack of capacity to have the necessary resources to cover the minimum basic human requirements for living, is expected by 2015 to be 883 million people (United Nations 2011, p. 4)
Analyzing the dendogram or distance matrix, we detected the membership of the Spanish food banks in two different clusters with different sizes (Table 3)
They are entities supported mainly by private food donors, the contribution made by public entities should be highlighted. In both clusters, volunteers are the essential human resource in the activity of the food banks, ‘‘specialized food banks’’ have a smaller staff throughout the typology. These figures of human resources mean that the logistics management is the fundamental activity of each food bank, in which the food banks of cluster 1 invest more than 60 % of their workday
Summary
Extreme poverty, defined as the lack of capacity to have the necessary resources to cover the minimum basic human requirements for living, is expected by 2015 to be 883 million people (United Nations 2011, p. 4). In Spain in particular, 21.6 % of the population (more than 10 million people out of the 46.5 million inhabitants, according to INE 2014) is considered ‘‘poor’’ as they have annual incomes lower than 7040 euros (INE 2013), and these figures worsen year by year. This poverty increase is worrying when considered in parallel with the problem of food waste in developed countries (Pothukuchi and Kaufman 1999; Hodges et al 2011). Almost one-third of the food produced annually for human consumption worldwide (approximately 1300 million tons) is wasted (FAO 2011)
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