The Good Food Box: A Case Study of an Alternative Non-Profit System for Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Distribution

By Kathryn Scharf From Toward Hungerproof Cities (IDRC), eds. Mustafa Koc, Rod MacRae, Jennifer Welsh

Every month 4,000 boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables are delivered through 200 volunteer-run neighborhood drop-offs in Metro Toronto. The Good Food Box (GFB) project of FoodShare Metro Toronto is essentially a large buying club based on many of the same principles and aspirations as Japan's Seikatsu Club, the United States' Share Box and Brazil's Citizen's Action Against Hunger and Poverty and for Life. Since its inception in 1993, the Good Food Box has grown steadily, and eight towns in southern and central Ontario have adopted the model or variations on it. This paper will provide a case study of the development, operation and principles of the Good Food Box, as a successful community-based and market-driven food distribution alternative.

The Good Food Box was the eventual outcome of the Field to Table project, started in 1991 by the Toronto Food Policy Council (FPC). The members of the FPC recognized that food banks were an inadequate response to urban hunger, while also recognizing that hunger at the level of the individual and household is not the only facet of food insecurity (Food Policy Council 1994). A feasibility study proposed alternatives for people with food access barriers, such as small pre-order buying clubs and traveling fresh produce markets. FoodShare, a Toronto anti-hunger organization, agreed to take over the actual operation and administration of the Field to Table Project. An advisory group comprising Ontario farmers and anti-poverty activists provided project direction.

The buying clubs and markets were designed to provide people with locally-grown, healthy, fresh food, in their neighborhoods, outside the for-profit retail system. While they succeeded on one level, they were extremely labour intensive and expensive to run. They required a high number of staff hours, and a lot of labour and faith from community members. Inspired by the aforementioned international models, the FPC and FoodShare staff began to develop what they hoped would be a more efficient and sustainable model that would be capable of serving larger numbers of people.

In February, 1994, staff packed the first 40 Good Food Boxes at FoodShare's offices. The food in the box is purchased at the Ontario Food Terminal (the outlet for most imported and local produce coming into Ontario) or, as the project has grown, directly from farmers. The GFB distribution system developed as a partly staff-driven, partly volunteer-run project. Boxes are packed by volunteers twice monthly, then delivered to any neighborhood location in Toronto that has 10 or more individuals or families who want to buy the box. Volunteer co-ordinators collect money in advance of delivery, call in orders, then make sure that customers get their boxes.

The buying is done centrally, based on the numbers of advance orders for the box. The advance order system minimizes waste, and coincides with the income cycles of people on social assistance (orders and payment are made when money is available, food arrives when supplies and money are scarce). Box contents are standardized, though items vary with each delivery depending on what is in season or a good deal at the time. Participants sacrifice choice for affordability and convenience.

A top priority in planning the GFB is ensuring that the produce is very fresh and of the best quality, with a good balance of staples and items that are unusual, challenging or perceived as a luxury. Centralized purchasing also permits a focus on other food security and health promotion goals: buying locally and as directly as possible, encouraging in-season consumption and more nutritious produce options (e.g. romaine lettuce vs. iceberg). A newsletter included in the box contains educational material on food preparation, nutrition and food issues.

The GFB reflects a philosophy that is distinct from, though not mutually exclusive to, that which motivates other strategies to reduce hunger: on the one hand, traditional charity solutions, which focus on the individual and their immediate household food shortage; and on the other, advocacy that addresses systemic, long-term solutions on behalf of entire classes of people (e.g. advocacy for income re-distribution). The GFB is a response to the position held by most anti-hunger activists that food banks are not a sustainable food distribution mechanism, and that food bank recipients often feel that their self-esteem is damaged by having to rely on charity in order to get the food they need to live. While there is no question that both the emergency and advocacy approaches are vital, the GFB also challenges an assumption often shared by proponents of both approaches- i.e. that the normal or "ideal" food distribution mechanism is the for-profit retail system, and if people had enough money to buy food, there would be no problem with the food system.

A food security analysis sees adequate income as a necessary but not sufficient condition for food security, either on the individual or societal level. Thus the GFB challenges the premise that the oligopolistic retail food sector, so largely shaped by advertising and profit-making exigencies, is the healthiest way for everyone to buy their food. Even if everyone had enough money to buy food from a supermarket tomorrow, would our food supply necessarily be safe, stable and geared toward community needs and individual health? Would we have the skills and nutritional knowledge necessary to prepare food and the socially rewarding and empowering food culture necessary to enjoy it?

The GFB does incorporate some elements of a traditional business. It is a "community business," which must survive in a marketplace dominated by powerful, "efficient" corporations. This means that it must offer a product, delivery mechanism and service that is competitive or superior to what is offered by a supermarket. Thus, as with business, the market mechanism can provide a good indicator of whether the project is working for people and can prevent a top-down approach which misses addressing real community needs.

In a capitalist society, in the absence of other types of meaningful social participation, people are often affirmed when treated as "customers." This stems partly from the fact that respectful treatment and a quality product are required from a retailer, or a customer will exercise their power of complaint and their prerogative to shop elsewhere. Aside from the real, practical nature of the consumer relationship, there is a symbolic dimension. A quality product and good service gives a message to a customer that they are valued. Given the fact that low-income people are often the recipients of inferior quality goods (the "garbage food for garbage people" perception identified amongst food banks recipients by Marie Foley [Foley 1992])-- either from food banks or because they are forced to select them to save money-- the high quality of the food in the GFB is intended to send the message that "you're worth it." Confirming this reading, quality has consistently been cited as an important motive of purchase in the professional evaluations carried out on the project. (Smaller World Communications 1996).

There is no means test administered for the GFB. A recent study of food insecurity in Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto, found that 46% of low-income people surveyed had never used a food bank (Scarborough Hunger Coalition 1997). A determination to avoid the stigma (especially strong among some immigrant groups) appears to be one primary reason why. If people will not even use a free service, if it is constructed only for low-income people, for fear of stigmatization, a service involving a fee and requiring unconventional shopping practices must be even more wary of putting people off. The organizers' analysis of the failure of one GFB experiment in Windsor, Ontario bears out the theory that the association with charity may cause people to avoid participating (Good Food Box Guide 1997).

There is no way to administer a means test without sending the message that this service caters to "the poor," so the GFB has never used one. However, the neighborhoods and groups targeted are low income. The lack of a means test is also justifiable because most people, regardless of income, are not consuming adequate amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables. Evaluation shows that GFB customers do increase these levels-- possibly either because of raised awareness of the health benefits, or because of simply having a mechanism that fills the refrigerator with fresh food that must be eaten or left to spoil. Higher income people use the project at a much lower rate, deterred perhaps by the fact that they have the transportation and money necessary to access exactly what food they want exactly when they want it. (Smaller World 1996)

The GFB competes in the marketplace of imagery as well. Early evaluations showed that low-quality publicity materials created an impression of low-quality products (St. Jacques 1994), so care has been taken to create bright, upbeat materials that acknowledge the fact that low-income people are savvy media consumers, and that they would prefer to be a part of a project with a positive and uplifting imagery than one that creates a dingy or depressing aura around itself.

Though the GFB seeks to be efficient and sustainable, it goes far beyond the traditional retail relationship to community in its response to community needs- and sometimes serving these needs is not the most "efficient" economic strategy. In this way, the GFB is more like a traditional non-profit, governed by an ethic of service rather than "the bottom line." Initially, it was hoped that an economy of scale and centralized administration could pay entirely for the running of the project. But there have turned out to be a variety of "expenses"-- community development, following environmentally-sound practices, health promotion, volunteer support and development, nutrition/food skill education, involvement in political education and advocacy- which also need to be paid for. Capital inputs necessary to run a project of this scale are also high, along with the crossover expenses that go to support related FoodShare projects running with the same staff and equipment (a community economic development catering project, kitchen incubator and food skills training project for low-income women).

The payments made by customers for the GFB are roughly equivalent to the cost of the food itself, delivery and the newsletter. Staff time, capital costs and other expenses are covered by FoodShare's funding mechanisms- private donors, foundations and government grants. Though one cannot be sure of what motivates funders to support a given project, one can guess that government chooses to support the GFB because of its capacity to reach into the community on a more grassroots level than government-run projects are able to, while its size and efficiency also enable health promotion on a reasonably large scale.

The contribution of private donors is important to the mix in FoodShare's funding base. However, the approach to individual donors is complex, for many are familiar primarily with more traditional charity, "feed the poor" appeals (including FoodShare's own appeals, in the past). Care must be taken in the direct mail campaigns and newsletters not to alienate or confuse them, while still providing an honest representation of the project and education about the difference between food security and food charity.

As a community development project, the GFB tries to mitigate some of the difficulties that CD projects often experience. The traditional difficulty with community development is that it requires heavy buy-in and labour from the community. Unfortunately, the demand for this level commitment is often what thwarts the success of the projects, since the labour for a few volunteers rarely seems to justify the rewards- hence the difficulty keeping small-scale buying clubs going. This has also been FoodShare's experience with community gardening projects, where groups are often shipwrecked on the gruelling and difficult early stages of sod-turning and disheartening learning curve disasters. Where there is clearly a need, a little skilled help with the garden design and labour can go a long way to creating success.

The GFB works on the principle that a project must meet demonstrated community needs and be heavily influenced by community input, but that it is as important that a project needs to be well conceived and well-resourced in the early stages. A fundamentally good idea, with a concrete and visible benefit is a better place to start than with fruitless and endless meetings with a "product" or benefit figuring only as an eventual pay-off. The danger, of course, is that the project may become too undemocratic and centralized.

How the box contents are determined is one example of how the balance is arrived at between democratic participation and central planning. Were one to strictly follow the community development credo of asking "what does the community want?", it is quite possible that consumers would demand processed, name brand items. This is not to insult popular tastes, simply to recognize that consumer desires are not created in a vacuum, but in relation to the many millions of dollars spent on advertising highly processed, unhealthy foods. Here the health promotion role of providing a countervaling influence through social marketing qualifies the community development desire to work only on what the community articulates as its desires. So FoodShare has chosen to provide and promote only healthy foods-- knowing that there is also a need and desire for these, and that people still have the option of purchasing processed foods through other means (similarly, there is no attempt to stretch people's preferences too far in the direction of "health food,"by including, say, seaweed in the Box). On the other hand, within these parameters, feedback on contents is welcomed and adjustments based on these are constantly being made.

The GFB has, from the very beginning, taken into account community input in the form of customer service and detailed project evaluation. In terms of project design and control, early attempts to hold meetings and educational sessions showed that there was little interest on the part of customers or co-ordinators in being involved in the administration of the project or activities or politics beyond the scope of the project itself. However, a survey of co-ordinators indicated that many are now becoming interested in networking, advising the project and learning more about food issues and the food system (Smaller World 1995). Hence a concerted attempt has been made to form a co-ordinators network to facilitate this.

There has always been the hope that the project would form the basis for some type of food action or consumer movement similar to that in Japan or Peru. In Toronto, historically it has proven difficult to organize low-income people (or any other type of collective action, for that matter). The GFB has worked on the principle of taking baby steps into community and political development. Where a food bank, welfare office or supermarket all deal with the individual, the GFB will only deal with groups- a small way of encouraging community self-organization. As a first step into collective action, becoming a GFB co-ordinator, or becoming a customer that purchases food in this novel way may be significant enough. FoodShare's hope is that in the longer-term, these groups will show the same general inclination as the co-ordinators and become interested in complementary food access initiatives, and possibly even consumer or political activism. The newsletter continues to highlight these programs and issues.

The Good Food Box is constantly negotiating the tensions between the needs of efficiency, competitiveness and health promotion with those of service and responsiveness to individual and community needs. The ability to be flexible and constantly reassess is a key asset in making the project successful. If we start from the premise that what is needed is a food system that actually works for low-income people and at the same time promotes a stable, local agricultural economy, we get a very different result than if we start with the premise that the task is to remedy food emergencies. In this case, the means and process of setting up this alternative system become as important as the end of improving food access. But idealism can only take us so far. The project must be relevant to individuals, viable and sustainable. Thus the hope is that the Good Food Box can be influential as a catalyst to mobilize interest and action in working toward the social goals of improved health, building community capacity, reviving a healthy food culture and gaining equitable control over the food supply.

Endnotes

One can speculate that this provides one explanation for the lack of popularity of the Staples Box and the Basic Box, experimental versions of the GFB containing basic dry goods and less expensive fruit and vegetables respectively. Though it is difficult to identify all the variables that could explain this failure, it may well be that customers are all too used to shopping for the "no name" and lower end food items, and that they therefore experienced them more negatively than the GFB, with its touches of extravagance (strawberries, cranberries at Christmas, etc.). On a purely practical level, the Staples and Basic Boxes may have made sense, but customers may have experienced them as simply no fun.

References

Foley, Marie Charlotte 1992. "Beggars Can’t Be Choosers: An Ethnography of a Food Bank."

York University, Toronto, ON, Canada. Master of Arts thesis, 70 - 102.

Saint Jacques, Helene 1994. "Field to Table Social Marketing Program: An In-depth Consumer Evaluation of Field to Table Services." Informa, Inc., Toronto, ON, Canada, 49.

Scarborough Hunger Coalition 1997. "Food Insecurity in Scarborough: A Study of Current Reality and a Report of Recommendations for Community Action." Unpublished research paper, Toronto, ON, Canada, 24.

Scharf, Kathryn and Mary Lou Morgan 1998. "The Good Food Box Guide." FoodShare, Toronto, ON, Canada, 85-87.

Smaller World Communications 1995. "Field to Table Coordinators Survey." Smaller World Communications, Toronto, ON, Canada, 22.

Smaller World Communications 1996. "Field to Table Program Evaluation Results." Smaller World Communications, Toronto, ON, Canada , pp 50.

Toronto Food Policy Council 1994. "Reducing Urban Hunger in Ontario: Policy Responses to Support the Transition from Food Charity to Local Food Security." Toronto Food Policy Council