Abstract
Describe the value of Nourish to help food banks rank and track the nutritional quality of food bank foods. Underemployment, stagnant wages, and most recently the COVID-19 pandemic, have led to an unprecedented number of Americans relying on charitable food assistance. The Blue Ridge Area Food Bank (BRAFB), located in central and western Virginia, feeds nearly 130,000 Virginians each month with help from 200 food pantries and 175 feeding programs. The connections between hunger and health are undeniable and access to nutritious food is paramount in preventing and managing chronic disease, especially for those who rely on pantries as a primary source of nutrition. The BRAFB has developed policies and systems that prioritize the acquisition of nutrient-dense foods. In 2019, the BRAFB and academic partners developed and implemented Nourish, a unique cloud-based platform that ranks and tracks the nutritional quality of food bank foods and recently updated Nourish to reflect Healthy Eating Research Nutrition Guidelines for the Charitable Food System. Nourish reliably and quickly searches for foods using USDA’s Food Data Central, automatically ranks foods using a stop-light hierarchy for easy visualization and integrates with inventory management for tracking. Nourish provides BRAFB with important data to make adjustments to food acquisition practices and meet nutrition goals consistent with the strategic operating plan. The nutrition information created through Nourish is disseminated to BRAFB partner agencies through the food bank’s ordering process. Pantries focused on nutrition and health can leverage stoplight ranking as an element of their educational efforts with clients. Multiple stakeholders are currently exploring additional collaborations to enhance the utility of the system at pantries and for clients.
Published Version
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