Vermont Business Magazine The Vermont Foodbank announced the launch of a Food Security Innovation Lab. This two-year venture will initially be staffed by two professionals with an eye toward exploring new, experimental ways to address hunger and the root causes of hunger in Vermont. This work represents a new, highly focused effort that will happen alongside and in collaboration with efforts and programs that the Vermont Foodbank continues to operate.
“In the past, ending hunger meant making sure food was accessible and affordable,” John Sayles, CEO of the Vermont Foodbank said. “We realized as an organization that it really is equity and solving for ending racial oppression and changing structures and systems in our society that’s going to be a long-term solution to hunger.”
Over two years, the Innovation Lab team will pilot, evaluate, and then support collaborative efforts to scale new, systemic, state-wide solutions to food insecurity. The lab will launch four pilot projects and hopes to invest in two after evaluation. Each project will consider root causes of hunger and poverty and be designed to reduce food insecurity for people in Vermont. Example projects could include home delivered meal kits, order-ahead programs for local food shelves, and work centered on populations who have greater risk of food insecurity.
“We are not being prescriptive about what the pilots are, and we are not presuming to know the solutions that the Lab is going to land on,” said Cassie Lindsay, Director of Strategic Giving, adding that there is no shortage of places to begin. “We have a lot of great ideas. They bubble up and percolate but sometimes don’t have a place to land on our team – now they will.”
The work of the Food Security Innovation Lab will include gathering data, piloting, testing, and identifying best practices by using an entrepreneurial approach to understand what pilot projects make an impact. Included in this work is careful collaboration with the strong food insecurity network across the state of Vermont and the Feeding America network across the country.
“Solutions may not even center on food, though a measure of success will be a more food-secure Vermont,” added Sayles.
The Vermont Foodbank has recently hired Tatiana Abatemarco to lead the Food Security Innovation Lab. Abatemarco’s career and most recent work at Bennington College on sustainable food systems and rural food justice gives her an important perspective to lend as the Foodbank looks at potential pilot programs across the state.
“I’m excited to apply my experience working in sustainable food systems to help the Vermont Foodbank tackle the root causes of hunger in our communities,” shared Abatemarco.
The Food Security Innovation Lab has begun developing the timeline and designing the process by which pilot programs will be proposed, selected, implemented, and measured for success. This process will
include focus groups within and outside of the Vermont Foodbank. The lab will be hiring additional staff in the coming months. The Foodbank encourages interested funders and communities to join in supporting this work to reach out to Cassie Lindsay or Tatiana Abatemarco at [email protected].
About the Vermont Foodbank
The Vermont Foodbank is the state’s largest hunger-relief organization, providing nutritious food through a network more than 300 community partners – food shelves, meal sites, schools, hospitals, and housing sites. Food insecurity has increased dramatically as a result of the pandemic and the Vermont Foodbank and its network have been on the front lines, working to ensure that everyone has the food they need to maintain their health. Last year, the Vermont Foodbank provided over 19 million pounds of food to people throughout Vermont. The Vermont Foodbank, a member of Feeding America, is nationally recognized as one of the most effective and efficient nonprofits and food banks in the nation. Learn more at www.vtfoodbank.org.