Fighting Food Insecurity with Customer Product Donations

A global issue that hits particularly close to home here at Lineage is food insecurity. The number of people lacking consistent access to the high-quality, nutritious food they need continues to grow around the world. In 2023, this problem ballooned to touch the lives of nearly 2.3 billion people, globally, according to the 2024 State of Food Security and Nutrition report from the United Nations. With the rollback of pandemic-era food relief programs, now is the time for innovative solutions.

As a leader in the food supply chain, Lineage takes a proactive approach to addressing food insecurity. The Customer Product Donation program, developed through the Lineage Foundation for Good, is a unique initiative designed to empower customers and Lineage team members to work together to rescue safe, quality food from going to waste and redirecting it to those in need.

Providing an Opportunity to Give

The Customer Product Donation program at Lineage was born from a desire to address two major social issues: reducing food waste and alleviating food insecurity. The program is designed from the ground up to empower Lineage customers in our 450+ temperature-controlled warehouses worldwide. It creates the infrastructure and proactive support needed to identify safe-to-eat food products nearing expiration or with minor imperfections and divert them towards donation. Rather than allow these nutritious products to end up in landfills, where they can contribute to climate change, they are redirected to a global network of food banks, charities and community centers.

This initiative helps protect the environment by reducing food waste, while supporting at-risk communities facing food insecurity. By facilitating large-scale donations, Lineage is transforming surplus food into a valuable resource for people in need.

A Significant and Nutritious Donation

Since its inception, the Customer Product Donation program has helped facilitate several major donations, including a one million pound donation of kiwis in 2023. One recent donation came out of a Lineage facility in Illinois.

A customer at the Illinois cold storage facility identified a surplus of high-quality, nutritious food items they had in storage. These items, for whatever reason, just weren’t flying off the shelves at the grocery stores. One option was to discontinue the items and send them to the landfill, but that just didn’t sit right with the customer. Fortunately, Lineage had the answer. The company worked with Lineage team members to donate the food through the Customer Product Donation program.

The donation itself was substantial and nutritious. It consisted of 546 pallets, totaling 326,533 pounds of high-quality food. These products included cauliflower-based pizza crusts, frozen pizzas, pasta dishes and plant-based chicken products. All-in-all, it was enough to provide 261,226 meals to food-insecure families. This donation is one of the largest in the program’s history and highlights the growing success and impact of the initiative.

Coordinating the Logistics

One of the strengths of the Customer Product Donation program is the ability to coordinate large-scale donations of food with a food storage and logistics expert. Lineage makes donations like this possible by tapping into an expansive and cutting-edge logistics network, streamlining the entire process. In this case, the donated products were already stored in a Lineage facility, simplifying that first step. Once the customer decided to donate, the Lineage Foundation for Good team and site management took over.

Lineage makes the donation process even easier by tapping into a large network of food banks, food rescues and community centers. This growing network allows Lineage to connect these donated food products with the communities who need them the most. In the end, the donated food was distributed to several organizations, including Midwest Food Bank, Hands of Hope, Milford Food Bank and Cultivate Food Rescue. A total of 14 truckloads of food were sent to these partners, who helped ensure that these essential products reached those in need across multiple communities.

The Impact and Future of the Program

The immediate impact of this donation was significant. It provided enough food for hundreds of thousands of meals for food-insecure people. This donation, and the many donations the program has helped facilitate, shows just how impactful the Customer Product Donation program can be in the fight against food insecurity. By giving customers the tools and support they need to rescue food that would otherwise be wasted, Lineage, its customers and its partners are making a tangible difference.

The unfortunate truth is that food insecurity is a global problem that affects billions of people. But Lineage will continue leveraging resources, innovation and expertise to make a difference and help put food on the table for those who need it. The program serves as a modern example of how businesses in the food supply chain can turn potential waste into essential support for food insecure communities around the world. By continuing to streamline and expand this initiative, Lineage is not only helping to feed the world but also creating a blueprint for others to follow.