The famous coffee shop chain, Starbucks, has decided to join the fight against hunger and food waste.
Starbucks has recently announced in their official website that they are firing up a food donation program that aims to donate unsold food to charity. All of the 7,600 Starbucks stores in the United States are participating in this food drive.
The coffee chain will give away surplus ready-to-eat meals directly to food banks, as told by Huffingtonpost. Teva Sakima, a Starbucks staff, says, "Nobody should go to bed hungry. It's not okay." She said, remembering the time when her parents had struggled to provide food for the family.
In a recent report by Feeding America, the country is plagued with almost 50 million Americans that are not able to afford food. In addition, about 60 billion pounds of food are being wasted annually.
Starbuck aims to resolve hunger by doing their share. The company plans on donating 5 million meals to families in need, in the first year. In the next 5 years, Starbucks will increase its program to reach the 50 million mark by 2021.
This is also a way for the company to minimize food waste in its store locations which makes the plan an advantageous to both ends.
Donating food may sound easy and Starbucks has already donated all of its unsold pastries, but CEO Howard Schultz says expanding the generosity to perishable food items is a little difficult but it is doable - it will just take some more time because of the regulations the company needs to abide, in every state, in order to make sure the food is safe to consume which is an understandable case. To make things easy for the time being, Starbucks is coordinating with Food Donation Connection and Feeding America for this food initiative.
