Tour of Central PA Food Bank

On November 4, I (Dacey) toured the facility of Central Pennsylvania Food Bank and talked to Kir Evancho. Upon arriving I was greeted by the receptionist and told that Kir would be right out and that I could have a seat. Kir greeted me and asked about the general premise of the project. I told her that we were basically simulating what it would be like if we as designers were working with an organization. This helped frame the tour and I gained lots of valuable insight from it.

The front area is mostly offices and she showed me a map of the countries they serve. There are 3 total main facilities, Harrisburg, Williamsport and Blair. The one in Blair county is new and not yet on their website. Williamsport is very rural and this facility is able to reach the more northern counties. She said that the new one is so that they are able to connect with the farmers out there to have more connections to fresh food. We moved on to the warehouse and she showed me each of the sections they had there. The first section was a “Store” for local partner agencies to do their shopping in the warehouse. I learned that a Food Bank is much different than a Food pantry. The food bank is just where all the food and products are stored and distributed from, she said they are like a distribution center. They partner with about 1,000 local pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, schools and more to provide food across the counties. They will pack and ship pallets of food to the partners. There is an online ordering form that the partners can choose what food and products to “buy” for their community. I was under the impression that almost all the food was donated but that is far from true, she said that 70% of the inventory comes from corporate grocers like Giant, Weis, Wegmans and many others. They will donate truckloads of food or it may be things that are almost out of date that are donated as well. When we were talking about this she mentioned that when people do food drives it is often more work for the food bank due to having to drop off a box for collections, pick up the box and then sort through it. People treat that as a pantry clean out time and often donate things that are out of date without realizing. This requires more manpower and is not as beneficial to the food bank as donating money. With the connections to grocery stores, farms and food producers it is cheaper for them to purchase the stock and items they need in the foodbank instead of relying on donations. The items that are most often needed are produce like milk, eggs, vegetables, or fruit. These things go bad and are hard to donate. She made the connection that one jar of peanut butter could be $4-$5 so donating that would cost a community member $4-$5 for just a jar of peanut butter. But if they were to donate $5 to the food bank directly then that would be able to pay for 5 full meals, each with a protein, vegetable and starch which is much more impactful than a jar of peanut butter. Kir then showed me the area where pallets of items were ready to be loaded onto trucks. The back of the warehouse was the stock and she said it is pretty barren right now because of the Holidays coming up they are shipping more food out than they are getting in. It is the busiest time but even when it isn’t the holidays people are always in need of food. More people give and volunteer during the holidays so during the off seasons it is a little more on the main employees and volunteers to do everything and they might not have as much stock. She showed me the coolers of all the produce and said they have 4 coolers that are very large filled with milk, eggs, cheese and things that need to be refrigerated. Next she showed me the freezer that was for meat. It had a decal on it that said “Meat the needs” which is a program that was started in 2010 by Giant. Giant was throwing out loads of unsellable meat every week and month and trash isn’t free so it was costing money to be throwing out all this meat. They partnered up with the food bank to get this meat to them to give to people in need. The meat hadn’t gone bad but it wasn’t legal for them to sell anymore even at a lowered cost. So through flash freezing and climate controlled trucks they are able to get the meat to the food bank. It started as a way to reduce the food waste but now it is also used for donations of meat. They have had lots of turkeys for thanksgiving donated, she said walgreens once donated a whole truckload of steaks. So what started as a way to reduce waste is now also a great way to get meat to people in need. The last stop was what Kir called the “Model Pantry.” This area was small and set up like a pantry someone could go to in their town to get food. It had a refrigerated section, baby food, snacks, ingredients, cans and also resources. There was a chart that shows red, yellow and green foods for nutrition. Something she touched on earlier is that they don’t want to be prescribing food to people and saying “This food is unhealthy we won’t give it to our partner agencies.” Instead they are providing healthy foods and resources like recipes, health facts, and other nutritious things. This is what they are aiming to have in every agency. The model pantry is also their emergency pantry that they pull from if people come in and need food. People don’t understand the difference and might see “food bank” on the building and will come in and they can give them food. They also give them resources and will find what their zip code is to see what partner agencies are close to them so they have a closer, more consistent way to get food. Kir said that if they come back 37 times and never go to the partner agency then they will give them food all 37 times and won’t turn them away. This was where the tour ended and Kir asked if I had any further questions and that I can reach out to her with any other questions or information.