Food bank

“The food Banks collect, manage and divide foodstuffs to help the man to be restored. Their action is based on the exemption from payment, the gift, the division, the voluntary help and the patronage”, such is the definition given in the charter of the French federation of the food banks. In North America, in Europe, and more largely in all the industrialized countries, such non-profit-making associations thus aim at the food collection, preferably nonperishable, and their free or quasi-free provision the most stripped with - primarily by the means of other intermediate associations within the framework of partnership agreements. The finality is in the final analysis to answer the social urgency by food aid and to fight against the wasting of the food products to nourish those which are hungry.

Three questions deserve here to be approached:

the food banks intervene on the ground of malnutrition in the rich countries. How is it made that the question of the access to food still arises it in companies of material abundance?
Of other charity associations collects and stores also food products for a distribution with the stripped people (Resto du coeur in France). In what the action of the food banks is it different from that carried out by these charity associations?
With which financial conditions the food banks and comparable associations can they have access to foodstuffs of quality? Which are the channels of provisioning?

General context in the industrialized companies

Economic context and social

According to the European Federation of the food Banks, they are on the whole () people in Europe who live of the food aid distributed by charity associations, thus meeting the essential needs in products of first need. According to French Popular help, 2.600.000 people in France live of the food aid distributed by great humanitarian associations (French Popular help, Banque food, Resto du coeur, French Croix-Rouge). Among these people, one counts poor elderly, workers, homeless person, handicapped people, woman alones with children (often in low age), and also more and more often of the young people. In 2005, the American food banks made it possible to provide an food aid to more than 25 million underprivileged people (among whom 9 million children and 3 million elderly). According to Second Harvest, more than 38 million Americans know a food precariousness, are hungry or are likely to be hungry.

Paradox of the industrialized companies, their richness grows overall, they produce goods in abundance, while some their members have all the sorrows of the world to satisfy a need however basic, namely to nourish itself suitably. How to explain this paradoxical situation, absurdity and unjust in which hunger and wasting coexist?

Digging of the inequalities, development of the misery and the situations of extreme poverty. It is proven that malnutrition is one of the first causes of physical degradation and professional exclusion. Miss resources, unemployment, precariousness and exclusion are at the origin of malnutrition and the food insufficiency; but the reverse is quite as true.
the rural migration and the concentration of misery in urban environment make difficult any fold on agricultural activities, and traditional means of subsistence (vegetable gardens).
the mechanisms of the market economy end in economic and humane nonsenses. Food products are wasted whereas they could be employed usefully. The agricultural surpluses, the overproduction of agribusiness industries, by fear of a fall of the courses, lead to withdraw with the sale a big number of food products however completely consumable. Food products available are thus prohibited in fact to consumption, insofar as the market economy does not exempt (by definition) the productions only with the solvent consumers.

Bases of the intervention

On the basis of the report of this dysfunction, the humane intervention is based on article 25 of the Universal declaration of the Human rights: “Any person is entitled to a standard of living sufficient to ensure her health, her wellbeing and those of her family, in particular the food, clothing, housing, the medical care like for the social services necessary”.

The mobilization of the food banks is based on this basic right. In order to get the food products necessary under conditions financially viable (and satisfactory from the medical point of view), it is impossible to be supplied on the traditional markets: this financing must thus circumvent the traditional distribution systems. Engagement the voluntary ones is an important condition, the free provisioning or at extremely low prices as well as the public allocations in cash or in kind (ex: distribution of part of the national dairy quotas within the framework of the Agricultural policy common in the form of assistance to the food banks) is thus a vital need for the success of such a company.

History and actors of food aid

By certain aspects, certain charity associations are comparable to food banks. Their activity indeed has like common denominator the collection and the storage of the foodstuffs for a distribution to the stripped people. In this institutional landscape, the food banks strictly speaking are relatively recent but post nevertheless an unquestionable specificity.

Traditional charity associations: above all, the contact and insertion

Humanitarian associations carry on activities close to that of the food banks, namely the collection, the storage and the redistribution of food products the most stripped to. In France, three associative networks thus devote a big part of their activity to the collection and the redistribution of foodstuffs: the Popular help, the Resto du coeur and the the Red Cross.

Of course, the vocation first of these networks remains, beyond the gifts of food, the accompaniment and the social integration. By their logistic aspect and collects, these associations thus have fact a shutter “banks food”, but such an activity remains however possible only for the most powerful networks of mutual aid.

History of the food banks

In the United States: the network Second Harvest

The first food banks were constituted in the United States at the end of the years 1960. The first food bank opens with Phoenix (Arizona) in 1967. It is with John van Hengel, voluntary in a soup kitchen, which one owes the creation of this food bank. Learning that trade threw consumable food at a rate of a close time limitation or damaged packing, he persuaded the tradesmen to make gift of this food to fine humanitarians. Van Hengel managed to collect so much gifts of food which the association in which it worked could not manage any more all these goods. It then decided to create a central warehouse to store these food products and auprès whose other humanitarian associations of Phoenix could come to supply themselves free. This very first food bank is always known under the name of " St Mary' S Food Bank".

This model was exported a little everywhere: with the beginning of the year 1970, several other food banks were instituted in several big cities. In 1976, the federal government granted a help to the food bank created by Van Hengel with an aim of allowing him to extend the model to all the country. The same year, a tax reform gave a decisive nudge in the right direction to the food banks while making more advantageous the gift by the companies of their products. Since 1979, the American movement of the food banks is juridically made up under the name of " America' S Second Harvest".

Van Hengel also travelled to Canada and to Europe to contribute to the creation of new food banks, and founded International Food Banking Services, a consultancy for the development of food banks.

In 1982 the federal assistance ceased, and the network Second Harvest diversified its funding sources. Since, the organization continues to grow as well in terms of adherent food banks as in terms of volume of food products distributed. Since 1984, the national office of the organization is held with Chicago (Illinois).

In Europe

The appearance of the food banks in Europe is later: on the American model, the first food bank opens there in France in 1984 with Arcueil, to leave the meeting several charity associations. Banks developed thereafter in other countries of Europe. All these national federations are gathered within the European Federation of the Food Banks, which was created in 1986.

The specificity of the food banks: specialists in logistics in the middle of a chain of solidarity

Insofar as other charity associations can have to fill of the similar functions, the question of the specificity of the food banks thus arises.

The food Banks differ:

of Soup kitchens, insofar as in fact food products are distributed, not prepared meals (certain food banks, however, organize soup kitchens exceptionally).
as well as “traditional” charity associations: the food banks concentrate on the logistic tasks and the collection of vivres. If the food banks support the actions of reintegration carried out by their associations partners, they leave with these last the care to take such actions and to distribute the foodstuffs to the people in the need.

The food banks are thus specialized in logistic tasks and on the food work of collection. The distributions of vivres are not done directly to the people in the need but pass by various institutions partners (adherent) local: social charity associations and administrations (Communal centres of Social action) - which are supplied free near the food Bank. A food bank is in fact a “armed wing logistic” with the service of a local associative network, and which concentrates its means on the centralization of the vivres and their conservation. It is an intermediary between the suppliers of vivres (undertaken, particular, public authorities) and the recipients (administrations, associations).

This specialization in the food collection actually goes hand in hand with the increase in the needs for the charitable organizations: while concentrating on logistics, the food banks thus release charity associations (in particular smallest) of the question of their provisioning and thus allow them to be better devoted to their mission of social rehabilitation. Many local associations not having easily access to the sources of supply, it is for this purpose that the food banks will compensate them in this task. Thus, in the United States, Second Harvest, the American federation of the food banks, helps approximately 50 000 local associations in their actions (soup kitchens, shelters of night, food pantries…).

The food collection indeed became problems with whole share, so much the access to the supplies food products is a difficult activity. Logistic specialization and the visibility of the food banks, made up in powerful networks, confer to them a more important capacity of negotiation near the suppliers in foodstuffs, than humanitarian associations could not only assume.

Organization and operation

Organization

The organization of the European food banks is inspired largely by the example of the American food banks .

As in the United States, the banks of each country are structured in network on the federative mode. Second Harvest, the American network of food banks, is also the most important humanitarian association of hunger relief in the United States: more than 200 local food banks are members. In France, 79 banks acting on the level of the departments are gathered in a national federation coordinating their action. In fact, current name “banks food” often maintains confusion between the local banks and the French federation of the Food Banks. The national federations themselves are affiliated with a European Federation of the Food Banks (gathering on the whole 163 local banks).

The creation of a local bank leaves the initiative of an acting grouping of associative actors to local scales, which shows there still the role of logistic tool of the food banks, whose action is put at the service of all the initiatives. The role of the national federations is to be used as equalization and to accommodate the great donations. The federations establish the standards with regard to storage capacity, the quality control, management.

The food banks are entirely managed by the voluntary ones for the collection and the routing of the food products, their sorting and storage, their control and conditioning. The division and the distribution of vivres go exclusively to stripped via adherent charity associations. The food banks rest on the voluntary help, the patronage, generosity as well as the exemption from payment of the collected food products.

Sources of supply

By which channels the food banks do manage to be provided in consumable foodstuffs and of quality, the basic idea being with this intention to circumvent the traditional mechanisms of commercial distribution? The contributions come in very great majority from gifts (free, therefore) and more rarely from purchases at low prices with those from the market (less than 10% of tonnage in food products comes from purchases with regard to the American network Second Harvest).

The givers are:

the general public: each year in November a national collection of nonperishable food products is organized near the public in the stores of large distribution. The voluntary ones of the Food Banks distribute to the entry of the explaining store of the printed papers form which products must be bought in priority. The customers then give to the exit the food products thus bought, which will be then stored. The required products are mainly: Starchy S (pastes, rice), coffee, oil, tuna, sardines, pie preserves some but also food for infants (small pots),
the Agribusiness industries: the FFBA engaged of the partnerships with Bonduelle, Danone, Kraft, Lindt, Nestlé. In the United States, a tax reform of 1976 supports the donation by the companies of their products at the food banks. Since, the operation and the idea even of the food banks are well accepted by the industrialists.
large distribution: similar agreements were signed in order to collect in the large ones and average surfaces of the often unsaleable nonperishable products (nonmarketable because not very presentable for example). That lies within the scope of a more general policy of fight against the wasting.
public authorities, mainly by the opening of agricultural stocks. The US government provides free or for a ridiculous price of the farm surpluses to the food banks. The European Economic community opened, in 1987 following the request for Coluche, the surpluses of the Agricultural policy common to associations providing food aid (the surpluses were indeed more expensive to store than to distribute free to the poor!). In France, these surpluses go, in addition to at the food Bank, the Resto du coeur, the Red Cross and Popular help. The food banks contribute thus usefully to the resorption of the surpluses of agricultural production while making some profit the most stripped the (principal food products concerned: milk, fruits, vegetables, cereals).

In France, the food Bank thus annually collects () tons of foodstuffs.

Redistribution

The collected vivres are then stored in warehouses of transit where they are preserved under medical good conditions. The material of storage, the data-processing management system, the elevators, the transpallets, vehicles and light vans necessary to these activities of storage are the subject also of gifts on behalf of associations such as the Lions Clubs or the Rotary Club.

The food banks do not distribute in theory directly the food products to the stripped populations. Local associations in contact with the population undertake some. This provisioning of the humane and caritative organizations of ground is carried out within the framework of conventions. All the year, the food banks supply free humanitarian associations, the adherent social welfare as well as the centers of mutual aid or reception acting at the local level. These places of reception and associations employ then these food products according to various methods:

For purposes to prepare hot meals for the homeless people, or many meal of exchange where voluntary and profit are invited (in Christmas for example).
Preparation of parcel of food products for the people which cannot move (elderly).
the food products can also be used for residents' associations in order to supply food grocers (such called " social grocers "), exclusively open to the people in the need.

To the United States, the network Second Harvest distributes 1,8 annually billion food books of provisions.

Current problems

The Programme European of Assistance in more Démunis (PEAD) supplies certain associations in food products withdrawn from the market (stocks of intervention of the Common Agricultural policy, produced withdrawal nationals). This program envisages the provisioning of approved charity associations, which have access to the European surpluses thus. These associations are in France the Food Bank, the Resto du coeur, the Red Cross and Popular help.

The European commission informed associations having access to the European food surpluses that these stocks will not exist any more because of the end of the policy of intervention of the EU within the framework of the CAP. So this “access to the European refrigerator”, however vital for associations, was finished at the end of 2005. Associations require, since, the perpetuation of the plan, at least in a financial form, with an aim of continuing their activity. In France, the ministry for Agriculture renewed its convention with the French federation of the Food Banks, in order to continue a maximum provision of the food products for the needy ones while guaranteeing a maximum public health of distributed food, so that does not develop a two-speed food public health. The European commission granted a prolongation of the program until 2009.

Internal bonds

(in English) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_bank
(in English) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_van_Hengel
(in English) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/America%27s_Second_Harvest

External bonds

Food banks

European Federation of the Food Banks
French federation of the Food Banks
(list of the local banks)
Belgian Federation of the Food Banks
food Bank of Swiss Luxembourg
Federation of the Food Banks
Canadian Association of the Food Banks
America' S Second Harvest Network
list of the affiliated food banks
the Moroccan Food Bank

Other associations collecting of food

Resto du coeur
the French Red Cross
French Popular help

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