Food Security and Health for All

Innovative Solutions: Linking the Restaurant Industry with Food Insecurity

Food Insecurity in the USA

The restaurant industry cannot be discussed without naming the crisis of food security that this country faces on a national scale. This pandemic is highlighting some of the broken links in the food system that have been previously ignored, and the risk that food insecurity entails. The 11.1% of households, disproportionately people of color and with low income, that already lacked access to sufficient food is growing due to the economic decline wrought by COVID-19. Free meals at school were essential nutrition for many children in the US, and that safety net is now lost.

Living in a “food desert” (where the nearest grocery story is more than a mile away) is intricately related with diabetes, hypertension, and obesity, which are also some of the highest risk factors for dying of COVID-19. This disproportionately impacts people with lower incomes and people of color, and that same population is now experiencing a second blow of higher death rates due to COVID-19, according to the CDC.

It is not hard to draw the link between food insecurity and dying from COVID-19. To meet the new food insecurity and consequential health risks of families in the US, the national government can follow emergency and 2008 Recession precedents to make food banks easier to expand and food stamps more effective. Still, a more robust solution will be needed, roping in the restaurant industry and its innovative capacity.

Reopening the Economy: Reopening Restaurants?

In order for restaurants to be able to reopen, they must survive the shutdown. Lease costs are a crucial risk factor for restaurants’ ability to remain afloat during the pandemic. On a national level, landlords are giving mixed signals to those restaurants impacted by statewide or local shutdowns, with major chains like Cheesecake Factory unable to pay rent. In San Francisco, two supervisors were championing a bill to waive rent for restaurants as of late March, and no updates have been seen yet.

Demands are for fixes to the Paycheck Protection program to ensure that restaurants can reopen. Even if the restaurants are able to reopen, millions of people who work in the industry are suffering now and have no guarantee of a job in the future. Who is responsible? According to the Independent Restaurant Coalition’s April 21 press release, the stimulus bill carved out $25 billion to preserve the employment of 750,000 airline workers, but designated nothing towards the 500,000 independent restaurants that employ 11 million people nationally. Localized support has become a lifeblood for many people and businesses through COVID-19 local relief funds. For example, San Francisco’s Ocean Beach favorite, Outerlands, started a GoFundMe and raised $20,000 for employees and their families. This type of local relief is a key signal of a new model that could rise out of the COVID-19 chaos.

A Corporate Social Responsibility Breakthrough

What if there was a model that could attend to the needs of people working in the restaurant industry and those experiencing food insecurity? A new Corporate Social Responsibility model is on the rise, pioneered by World Central Kitchen, an international NGO seeking strategic solutions to hunger. Its program called #ChefsforAmerica has risen up across the country to weave together restaurants, crowdsourced donations, and technology to attend to hunger in the COVID-19 pandemic and keep restaurants afloat. It sets an inspiring precedent and has already delivered over 6.5 million meals to those experiencing food insecurity. It has innovated to solve three problems at once: food for a rising hunger threat, revenues for a struggling industry and jobs for people who need income.

Concluding Thoughts

The uncertainty that the restaurant industry faces is extraordinary: the competitive landscape is shifting dramatically and the business model itself will transform because of this crisis. Key vulnerabilities have been highlighted in the USA food system: the job insecurity of people working in restaurants and the food insecurity of the broader population. José Andrés, the founder of World Central Kitchen, has put forth a compelling proposal that ties together many of these factors called the “American Eats Now” plan, which would mobilize the public-private collaboration to remedy the broken food system. Another example is the New York governor’s office sponsorship of local food supplier Lively Run Dairy, which is using its surplus to make cheese to donate to food banks. This pandemic may have offered a chance to build networks of innovation that could shift the food system forward towards more equitable and effective distribution of resources, towards more food security and health for all.

***

Sources:

• For Restaurants Fighting to Stay Open, Landlords Prove a Major Hurdle, Eater, Apr 21, 2020.
• Eve Bate, “Is Rent Relief in the Works for SF Restaurants?”
• “Congress Forgets Nearly 500,000 Local Restaurants in New Coronavirus Relief Package,” IRC, Apr 21, 2020.
• Charisse Jones, “Record 26 million Americans applied for jobless benefits,” USA Today, Apr 23, 2020.
• “Congress Forgets Nearly 500,000 Local Restaurants,” Independent Restaurant Coalition, Apr 21, 2020.
• “A List of Relief Funds for Restaurants, Bars, and Food Service Workers,” Eater, Mar 17 2020.
• The Century Foundation, “COVID-19 Lays Bare Vulnerabilities in US Food Security,” Apr 20, 2020.
• Jay Bhatt, “COVID-19 Exposes Health Risk of Food Insecurity,” NBC News, Ap 26, 2020
• Kelly Brooks, “Research shows food deserts more abundant in minority neighborhoods,” Johns Hopkins, Spring 2014
• COVID-19 in Racial and Ethnic Minority Groups, CDC Apr 22, 2020.
• Catherine Rampell, “The Next Threat: Hunger in America,” The Washington Post, Apr 2, 2020
• https://wck.org/chefsforamerica
• José Andrés, “We Have a Food Crisis Unfolding Out of Sight,”The New York Times, Mar 22, 2020.
• Pete Messmer, “How Food Businesses Nationwide Are Handling Coronavirus,” Bon Appétit, Apr 28 2020.