Food insecurity and meals surplus exist at reverse ends of the spectrum, however they go hand in hand in relation to their impression on public well being. Food insecurity, skilled by greater than 44 million individuals yearly inside the U.S., is related to an array of well being care points. On the opposite hand, meals surplus or unused meals can result in meals waste, which is linked to each starvation and continual illness; could be hazardous to well being when disposed of improperly; and impacts our ecosystems.

Sutter Health noticed each boundaries to public well being inside their communities, so that they partnered with progressive surplus redistribution device Copia and collaborated with native organizations to resolve them. Since February 2020, the Sacramento-based well being system has been diverting hospital meals that may in any other case go uneaten onto the plates of group members who want it most. This first-of-its-kind undertaking in northern California delivered 68,600 meals — together with a whopping 82,300 kilos of meals — to 45 nonprofits that serve meals insecure populations throughout the Bay Area and Sacramento Valley in 2023 alone. 

“We have made tremendous strides with this program in the past four years, and we are proud to partner with Copia on this great work,” stated Sutter Health Food & Nutrition Services Executive Jack Breezee. “Sutter Health is making a huge impact on our communities.”

To accomplish this, Sutter Health initially collaborated with nonprofit Health Care Without Harm to implement this system, partially funded by the Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery (CalRecycle) by means of California Climate Invest. The undertaking’s operational muscle is offered by Copia, a technology-enabled surplus restoration service that enables companies to simply distribute extra meals. 

In Sutter’s 16 collaborating hospitals, meals service workers use Copia to measure meals surplus in addition to donate unsold or unserved extra meals. After workers weigh extra meals and submit meals donations by means of Copia’s software program software through tablets, drivers are mechanically dispatched by Copia’s cellular app to select up and ship extra meals to native nonprofits, that are a median of 4.4 miles away from the donation website. 

And as this program addresses a key social driver of well being, it additionally diverts meals from landfills, saving a complete of 18.8 million gallons of water, 253,400 kilos of CO2 emissions and 12,900 gallons of fuel in 2023. 

Read more about Sutter Health’s sustainability initiatives.