A Model to Drive Research-Based Policy Change: Improving the Nutritional Quality of Emergency Food

Abstract

A nonprofit policy advocacy organization and an academic research center convened a one-day meeting of 20 key stakeholders from the emergency food network (EFN) to develop policy and practice recommendations that were vltimately crafted by the advocate-researcher team and aimed at improving the nutritional quality of emergency food. The convening was informed by recent studies of food bank inventory trends and aspects of food bank culture, capacity, and practices relating to nutrition. Recommendations were developed to establish nutrition standards for government-sourced emergency food and to review tax benefits for commercial food donations. Recommendations were also developed for EFN agencies to establish organizational nutrition guidelines, adopt metrics that incorporate the nutritional quality of distributed food, and advocate improvements to federal safety net programs.

Keywords:

• nutrition policy
• food policy
• food insecurity
• emergency food network
• food banks
• emergency food programs
• hunger
• obesity prevention

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by grant 68245 from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its Healthy Eating Research Program. The authors thank the policy convening attendees for their valuable input and insight.