Delhi Food Banking Network

Delhi Food Banking Network is

How FoodBanking Works

Delhi FoodBank is a non-profit distribution enterprise that serves the community by creating a systematic and lean process that connects people in need, with food. This is a system that moves food from donors to the people who need it and engages all sectors of society with a stakeholder driven model.

Delhi FoodBank started in 2012 and is run by the Aidmatrix Foundation, India. FoodBanking as a concept has been implemented globally since 1967 with the first FoodBank in Arizona, USA.

FoodBank's feed millions of people each year. It is also a vehicle to increase public awareness about hunger and its solutions, and serves as a powerful voice that drives policy decisions that impact the food security of individuals and communities. Delhi FoodBank is the first such FoodBank in India.

The bottom line is to source and salvage food and deliver it directly to those that need it most through a network of feeding programs. These beneficiaries include institutional feeding programs that provide services to school programs, charitable hospitals, orphanages, the destitute, beggars, homeless, after school programs, faith based organisations and various other institutional feeding programs.

Why FoodBanking Works

FoodBanking is an effective approach towards hunger relief and addressing the food and nutrition crisis because:

Universally supported People everywhere recognize and respect the conviction that no one should go hungry. When it comes to hunger, there is no "they" to oppose the "we" who work to end it.

Practical and efficient : FoodBanking appeals to the heart and the head; it feeds people with an established system.

Scalable : FoodBank's start at the community level and expand the networks to feed a ward, state, a nation and the world.

Adaptable : FoodBank's adapt and operate in different ways to suit diverse regional food habits, needs, sensitivities, cultures and economies.

Non-competitive : FoodBanking does not interfere with commercial channels of food distribution. It is an effective outlet for businesses, governments and farmers to support those that need it the most.

Efficient : FoodBanking will create an effective public distribution system with cutting-edge storage systems, modernising markets supply chains, logistics and hunger crisis management.

FoodBanking Technology

Food Banks operate efficiently through a technology driven workflow to empower the process of connecting food, with those that need it most.

The mission to connect nutritional food with the hungry, in a systematic and technology driven process that is lean and efficient is significantly implemented through a unique and customized system that makes our processes from procurement to warehousing to delivery, as impactful, measurable, traceable and transparent as possible so that all our stakeholders are satisfied and the central objective to end hunger and malnutrition can be met as effectively as possible.

This unique technology driven process delivers on the promise to get the right aid to the right people at the right time. http://www.aidmatrix.org provides technologies and processes for efficient operations of FoodBanks Globally.

The key elements of the FoodBankiong Technology are:

Management solutions: Specifically cater to sourcing, procurement, warehousing and delivery processes.

Procurement/Pre-Receive process : Comprehensive information regarding expected donation items obtained before delivery so that the warehouse team already knows that inventory is scheduled to arrive.

Receive : Documentation of all received donations in the warehouse at the time of delivery with electronic reports generated.

Warehousing : End-to-end inventory management of donated and purchased goods for quick dispatch verification.

Reporting : Real time reports for tracking, procurement, warehousing and delivery along with MEL reports for feeding programs.

Delhi Food Bank is also innovatively leveraging Mobile technologies through Short Code Services to getfood and givefood.

History

The world's first food bank was the St. Mary's Food Bank Alliance in Arizona, begun in 1967.

In 1965 John van Hengel while volunteering for a community dining room learned that grocery stores disposed of food that had damaged packaging or was near expiration. He started collecting that food for the dining room but soon had too much for that one program. He thought of creating a central location from which any agency can receive donations. With the help of St. Mary's Basilica, the first food bank was born.

Food banks quickly spread across the United States. By 1976, the precursor to Feeding America was established. Their network of 200+ foodbanks provides support for 90,000 projects. Other large networks exist such as Ample Harvest which lists some 33,000 food pantries that can utilise overproduction of fresh produce.

India FoodBanking Network

In India the FoodBanking concept is being pioneered by the India FoodBanking Network to augment ongoing Government and Non Profit feeding programs, with the establishment of the Delhi FoodBank. IFBN acquires donated food in the form of grains, pulses, oil, spices etc sourced on the basis of community food habits and makes these available through a network of community owned agencies. These institutional feeding programs include school feeding programs, shelter homes, Old age homes substance abuse clinics, after-school programs and cater to various needs. http://www.indiafoodbanking.org.

India FoodBanking Network (IFBN) of the Food Security Foundation India is a national level project started under the leadership of Mr. Sam Pitroda, Advisor to the Prime Minister for Public Information and Infrastructure and Innovation and with the support of organisations like Cargill India, DLF Foundation and Reliance Foundation, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, Global FoodBanking Network and is implemented and made operational by Aidmatrix Foundation. IFBN works with a vision to support thousands of existing feeding programs and create a minimum one FoodBank in each district of India by 2020.

http://www.delhifoodbanking.org , is a banking system that feeds, empowers and transforms lives in the New Delhi / NCR Region. We believe that our shared capabilities can make the most basic aspiration of universal access to food, a reality. This is through high quality and standards for processes leveraged by technology to get the right aid to the right people at the right time.

Founding Members of India FoodBanking Network:

Cargill: www.cargill.co.in/ Reliance Foundation: http://reliancefoundation.org/ DLF Foundation: http://dlffoundation.in/ Global FoodBanking Network: http://foodbanking.org Aidmatrix Foundation: http://www.aidmatrix.org Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition: http://www.gainhealth.org/

External links

• Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Mr. Sam Pitroda, Adviser to PM launch Delhi FoodBank
• Sam Pitroda leads charge to expand food banking in India
• India FoodBanking Organisation: Food Security Foundation of India
• India's first food banking network launched in Delhi for nutrition needs of undernourished
• Hunger relief at Curlie