Recorded at | December 04, 2019 |
---|---|
Event | TEDWomen 2019 |
Duration (min:sec) | 11:56 |
Video Type | TED Stage Talk |
Words per minute | 205.29 very fast |
Readability (FK) | 54.82 medium |
Speaker | Jasmine Crowe |
Official TED page for this talk
Synopsis
In a world that's wasting more food than ever before, why do one in nine people still go to bed hungry each night? Social entrepreneur Jasmine Crowe calls for a radical transformation to our fight to end global hunger -- challenging us to rethink our routine approaches to addressing food insecurity and sharing how we can use technology to gather unused food and deliver it directly to people in need.
1 | 00:12 | In June of 2017, | ||
2 | 00:15 | I volunteered with a group at a local food pantry | ||
3 | 00:18 | on the south side of my home city | ||
4 | 00:21 | in Atlanta, Georgia. | ||
5 | 00:23 | It was a Friday afternoon, | ||
6 | 00:24 | the day of their weekly food giveaway. | ||
7 | 00:27 | And as I drove up, | ||
8 | 00:28 | I saw people beginning to arrive, | ||
9 | 00:30 | many with their rolling carts in tow, | ||
10 | 00:32 | prepared to receive their food supply for the week. | ||
11 | 00:35 | As I was walking in the door, there were about 40 people outside | ||
12 | 00:38 | waiting in line. | ||
13 | 00:39 | And I was so excited, | ||
14 | 00:40 | because there are very few things I enjoy more than giving back. | ||
15 | 00:44 | But then, as I entered the room where the volunteer meeting was taking place, | ||
16 | 00:48 | I immediately realized: | ||
17 | 00:50 | we weren't about to give these people any real meals. | ||
18 | 00:53 | We were essentially just giving them food. | ||
19 | 00:55 | I took my place on the assembly line, where -- get this -- | ||
20 | 00:58 | I was in charge of making sure that the Weight Watchers Ding Dongs | ||
21 | 01:01 | made it into every family's bag. | ||
22 | 01:04 | As the bags started to come around, | ||
23 | 01:06 | I'm thinking to myself: | ||
24 | 01:08 | What on earth are we doing here? | ||
25 | 01:10 | Each bag contained two 20-ounce diet Snapples, | ||
26 | 01:13 | a gallon of barbecue sauce, | ||
27 | 01:16 | a bag of kettle potato chips, | ||
28 | 01:18 | a box of superhero-shaped vegetable-enriched macaroni noodles, | ||
29 | 01:23 | a box of belVita breakfast bars, | ||
30 | 01:26 | a can of refried beans, | ||
31 | 01:28 | a can of sweet peas, | ||
32 | 01:29 | a miniature can of corn, | ||
33 | 01:31 | I can't forget about those Ding Dongs | ||
34 | 01:33 | and french fried green onions, | ||
35 | 01:35 | you know, the kind that go on top of a green bean casserole. | ||
36 | 01:38 | And that was it. | ||
37 | 01:40 | We made over a hundred of those bags that day, | ||
38 | 01:42 | and people indeed stood in line to receive one. | ||
39 | 01:45 | But a feeling came over me; | ||
40 | 01:47 | I felt bad and a little angry. | ||
41 | 01:50 | It was like, how could I even feel good about the work that I was doing | ||
42 | 01:53 | when I knew for a fact that not one meal was to come | ||
43 | 01:56 | from the food we had just given to over 100 families? | ||
44 | 01:59 | I mean, who wants to have a meal with barbecue sauce and Ding Dongs? | ||
45 | 02:02 | (Laughter) | ||
46 | 02:03 | And the reality is, | ||
47 | 02:05 | I've been part of this process all my life. | ||
48 | 02:07 | I've participated in food drives, | ||
49 | 02:09 | I've collected cans since I was a kid, | ||
50 | 02:12 | I've donated in the grocery store more times than I can count, | ||
51 | 02:15 | I've volunteered at shelters, I've worked in food pantries, | ||
52 | 02:18 | and I'm sure, like me, so many of you have, too. | ||
53 | 02:21 | In 2013, I even created a pop-up restaurant, | ||
54 | 02:25 | called Sunday Soul. | ||
55 | 02:26 | And I rented tables and chairs and linens | ||
56 | 02:29 | and I printed out menus | ||
57 | 02:30 | and I took these experiences to alleyways, | ||
58 | 02:33 | underneath bridges and in parks | ||
59 | 02:35 | to allow people that were experiencing homelessness | ||
60 | 02:37 | to dine with dignity. | ||
61 | 02:39 | So I've invested in this fight for quite some time. | ||
62 | 02:43 | In almost every major US city, | ||
63 | 02:45 | the food bank is viewed as a beloved community institution. | ||
64 | 02:49 | Corporations send volunteers down on a weekly basis | ||
65 | 02:53 | to sort through food items and make boxes of food for the needy. | ||
66 | 02:57 | And can drives -- | ||
67 | 02:58 | they warm the hearts of schools and office buildings that participate | ||
68 | 03:02 | and fill the shelves of food banks and food pantries across the nation. | ||
69 | 03:06 | This is how we work to end hunger. | ||
70 | 03:08 | And what I've come to realize | ||
71 | 03:10 | is that we are doing hunger wrong. | ||
72 | 03:12 | We are doing the same things | ||
73 | 03:14 | over and over and over again | ||
74 | 03:17 | and expecting a different end result. | ||
75 | 03:19 | We've created a cycle | ||
76 | 03:21 | that keeps people dependent on food banks and pantries on a monthly basis | ||
77 | 03:25 | for food that is often not well-balanced | ||
78 | 03:27 | and certainly doesn't provide them with a healthy meal. | ||
79 | 03:30 | In the US, our approach to doing good, | ||
80 | 03:33 | or what we call "charity," | ||
81 | 03:35 | has actually hindered us from making real progress. | ||
82 | 03:37 | We're educating the world on how many people are food insecure. | ||
83 | 03:41 | There are television commercials, | ||
84 | 03:43 | billboards, | ||
85 | 03:44 | massive donations, | ||
86 | 03:45 | the engagement of some of our biggest celebrities in the fight. | ||
87 | 03:48 | But the ever-present reality is that, | ||
88 | 03:51 | even with all of this work, | ||
89 | 03:52 | millions of people are still going hungry. | ||
90 | 03:54 | And we can do better. | ||
91 | 03:56 | Globally, 821 million people are hungry. | ||
92 | 04:00 | That's one in nine people on this planet. | ||
93 | 04:03 | And here in the United States, | ||
94 | 04:04 | nearly 40 million people experience hunger every single year, | ||
95 | 04:07 | including more than 11 million children | ||
96 | 04:10 | that go to bed hungry every night. | ||
97 | 04:12 | Yet, we're wasting more food than ever before -- | ||
98 | 04:15 | more than 80 billion pounds a year, | ||
99 | 04:17 | to be exact. | ||
100 | 04:19 | The EPA estimates that food waste has more than doubled | ||
101 | 04:22 | between 1970 and 2017, | ||
102 | 04:25 | and now accounts for 27 percent of everything in our landfills. | ||
103 | 04:29 | And as this food sits, it gradually rots | ||
104 | 04:32 | and produces harmful methane gas, | ||
105 | 04:34 | a leading contributor to global climate change. | ||
106 | 04:37 | We have the waste of the food itself, | ||
107 | 04:39 | the waste of all the money associated with producing this now-wasted food | ||
108 | 04:43 | and the waste of labor with all of the above. | ||
109 | 04:46 | And then there's the social inequity | ||
110 | 04:48 | between people who really need food and can't get it | ||
111 | 04:51 | and people who have too much and simply throw it away. | ||
112 | 04:54 | All of this made me realize that hunger was not an issue of scarcity | ||
113 | 04:58 | but rather a matter of logistics. | ||
114 | 05:01 | So in 2017, I set out to end hunger using technology. | ||
115 | 05:05 | After all, food delivery apps had begun to explode on the scene, | ||
116 | 05:09 | and I thought surely we can reverse-engineer this technology | ||
117 | 05:13 | and get food from businesses like restaurants and grocery stores | ||
118 | 05:16 | and into the hands of people in need. | ||
119 | 05:19 | I believe that technology and innovation | ||
120 | 05:21 | have the power to solve real problems, | ||
121 | 05:23 | especially hunger. | ||
122 | 05:25 | So in 2017, I created an app | ||
123 | 05:28 | that would inventory everything that a business sells | ||
124 | 05:31 | and make it super easy for them to donate this excess food | ||
125 | 05:34 | that would typically go to waste at the end of the night. | ||
126 | 05:36 | All the user has to do now is click on an item, | ||
127 | 05:39 | tell us how many they have to donate, | ||
128 | 05:41 | and our platform calculates the weight and the tax value | ||
129 | 05:43 | of those items at time of donation. | ||
130 | 05:45 | We then connect with local drivers in the shared economy | ||
131 | 05:48 | to get this food picked up and delivered directly to the doors | ||
132 | 05:51 | of nonprofit organizations and people in need. | ||
133 | 05:54 | I provided the data and the analytics | ||
134 | 05:56 | to help businesses reduce food waste at the source | ||
135 | 05:58 | by letting them know the items that they waste repeatedly | ||
136 | 06:02 | on a regular basis, | ||
137 | 06:03 | and they even saved millions of dollars. | ||
138 | 06:05 | Our mission was simple: | ||
139 | 06:07 | feed more, waste less. | ||
140 | 06:09 | And by 2018, our clients included the world's busiest airport, | ||
141 | 06:13 | Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson, | ||
142 | 06:15 | and we were working with brands and corporations | ||
143 | 06:17 | like Hormel, Chick-fil-A and Papa John's. | ||
144 | 06:20 | We even had the opportunity to work with the NFL for Super Bowl LIII. | ||
145 | 06:24 | And over the last two years, we've worked with over 200 business | ||
146 | 06:28 | to divert more than two million pounds of edible food from landfills | ||
147 | 06:31 | into the hands of people that needed it most. | ||
148 | 06:34 | (Applause) | ||
149 | 06:35 | Thank you. | ||
150 | 06:37 | (Applause) | ||
151 | 06:43 | This has accounted for about 1.7 million meals | ||
152 | 06:46 | and allowed us to start to expand our efforts to other cities, | ||
153 | 06:49 | like Washington, DC, Chicago, Miami, Philadelphia and more. | ||
154 | 06:53 | That's just one approach that actually tackles the problem. | ||
155 | 06:56 | Another was the launch of our pop-up grocery stores. | ||
156 | 06:59 | We recover excess food from businesses | ||
157 | 07:01 | and set up free community grocery stores right in the middle of food deserts. | ||
158 | 07:05 | We bring out a chef, | ||
159 | 07:06 | and we do on-site taste-testings and allow families to leave with recipe cards. | ||
160 | 07:11 | We give every family reusable grocery bags and allow them to simply shop | ||
161 | 07:14 | minus the price tag. | ||
162 | 07:16 | We wanted to give people access to meals | ||
163 | 07:19 | and not just food. | ||
164 | 07:21 | We wanted to change the way that we think and work to solve hunger in this country, | ||
165 | 07:25 | get people to believe that we can solve hunger, | ||
166 | 07:27 | not as a nonprofit, | ||
167 | 07:28 | not as a food bank | ||
168 | 07:29 | but as a social enterprise, | ||
169 | 07:31 | with the goal of reducing waste and ending hunger. | ||
170 | 07:34 | But it hasn't been as easy as I thought | ||
171 | 07:36 | to change the narrative and the thought process | ||
172 | 07:38 | on how we think that hunger can be solved. | ||
173 | 07:41 | In 2016, France became the first country | ||
174 | 07:44 | to ban supermarkets from throwing away unused food. | ||
175 | 07:47 | Instead, they must donate it, | ||
176 | 07:49 | and they're fined if they don't. | ||
177 | 07:51 | Yes. | ||
178 | 07:52 | (Applause) | ||
179 | 07:56 | In 2017, Italy followed suit, | ||
180 | 07:58 | becoming the second European nation | ||
181 | 08:00 | to pass an anti-food-waste ban. | ||
182 | 08:03 | And they stated it so simply as it was passed through legislation: | ||
183 | 08:06 | "We have millions of pounds of good food going to waste, | ||
184 | 08:09 | and we have poor people that are going hungry." | ||
185 | 08:12 | That simple. | ||
186 | 08:13 | Denmark now has a mandated food waste grocery store. | ||
187 | 08:16 | Its name: Wefood. | ||
188 | 08:18 | They recover excess food from local grocery stores | ||
189 | 08:21 | and sell it at up to a 50 percent off discount. | ||
190 | 08:23 | They then use all the proceeds and donate it to emergency aid programs | ||
191 | 08:28 | and social need issues for the people in need. | ||
192 | 08:31 | It has been hailed as "the Goodwill of grocery." | ||
193 | 08:34 | And last year, the world got its first pay-what-you-can grocery store, | ||
194 | 08:39 | when Feed it Forward opened in Toronto. | ||
195 | 08:41 | Their shelves remain stocked by recovering excess food | ||
196 | 08:45 | from major supermarkets | ||
197 | 08:47 | and allowing families to simply pay what they can | ||
198 | 08:49 | at their grocery store. | ||
199 | 08:51 | This is amazing. | ||
200 | 08:53 | This innovation we need more of. | ||
201 | 08:56 | Everyone can take on the roles of changing the attitudes | ||
202 | 09:00 | about how we solve hunger. | ||
203 | 09:02 | When we think of how we've allowed innovation and technology | ||
204 | 09:04 | to change our lives, | ||
205 | 09:06 | from how we communicate with each other | ||
206 | 09:07 | to how we view our entertainment | ||
207 | 09:09 | to how we even receive food, | ||
208 | 09:11 | it's amazing that we haven't solved hunger yet. | ||
209 | 09:14 | We literally have cars that can drive themselves | ||
210 | 09:17 | and millions of people that cannot feed themselves. | ||
211 | 09:20 | With millions of dollars being donated to end food insecurity, | ||
212 | 09:23 | we should've solved hunger years ago. | ||
213 | 09:25 | And I asked myself -- | ||
214 | 09:27 | (Applause) | ||
215 | 09:31 | I asked myself, why can't we escape this vicious cycle? | ||
216 | 09:34 | Why haven't we solved this problem? | ||
217 | 09:36 | I remember meeting with investors and pitching the idea, | ||
218 | 09:39 | trying to raise funds for my business, | ||
219 | 09:41 | and one of them said to me, in true seriousness, | ||
220 | 09:43 | "Hunger is already being solved," | ||
221 | 09:46 | as if millions of people weren't going to go to bed hungry that very night, | ||
222 | 09:49 | and as if there was nothing else to do. | ||
223 | 09:51 | And the reality is, | ||
224 | 09:52 | one would think that hunger is being solved, | ||
225 | 09:54 | but the truth is, it's being worked on. | ||
226 | 09:57 | If we really want to solve hunger, | ||
227 | 09:58 | then we have to change the way we've been doing it. | ||
228 | 10:01 | The same actions will always garner the same results. | ||
229 | 10:04 | There are hundreds of social entrepreneurs all over the world. | ||
230 | 10:07 | They have a focus to solve really big problems, like hunger, | ||
231 | 10:11 | but they'll never get the same support | ||
232 | 10:13 | that we give national hunger-fighting organizations and food banks. | ||
233 | 10:16 | But, if given the opportunity, | ||
234 | 10:18 | they have the ability to foster insight | ||
235 | 10:20 | and perhaps be forward-thinking enough | ||
236 | 10:22 | to solve this problem. | ||
237 | 10:24 | That's why I'm traveling the world | ||
238 | 10:25 | and I'm really talking about what hunger looks like in America | ||
239 | 10:28 | and explaining the difference between giving people access to food | ||
240 | 10:31 | and access to meals. | ||
241 | 10:33 | I've been meeting with city council members | ||
242 | 10:35 | and city organizers across the US | ||
243 | 10:37 | and telling them that technology indeed does have the power | ||
244 | 10:40 | to connect businesses with surplus food | ||
245 | 10:43 | to people in need, | ||
246 | 10:44 | and explaining to them what a meal can actually mean to a family. | ||
247 | 10:47 | I've been meeting with school boards and school districts | ||
248 | 10:50 | to talk about how we feed hungry children, | ||
249 | 10:52 | and health care organizations, | ||
250 | 10:54 | sharing the message that food is health, | ||
251 | 10:56 | and food is life, | ||
252 | 10:57 | and that, by solving hunger, we can solve so many more problems. | ||
253 | 11:01 | So if we want to know | ||
254 | 11:03 | that we don't live in a nation | ||
255 | 11:04 | where perfectly good food goes to waste | ||
256 | 11:07 | when our neighbors don't have food to eat, | ||
257 | 11:09 | then we need to change the laws. | ||
258 | 11:11 | We need to introduce new policies, | ||
259 | 11:13 | and, most importantly, we need to change our minds and our actions. | ||
260 | 11:16 | Food drives are fine. | ||
261 | 11:18 | Food banks serve a huge purpose. | ||
262 | 11:20 | And yes, sometimes I like Ding Dongs, too. | ||
263 | 11:23 | But the reality is that food drives do not solve hunger. | ||
264 | 11:26 | And if we are smart about connecting the dots | ||
265 | 11:29 | that are right in front of our noses, | ||
266 | 11:30 | we can do far more than give a family | ||
267 | 11:32 | a box of superhero-shaped vegetable-enriched macaroni noodles | ||
268 | 11:37 | and a gallon of barbecue sauce | ||
269 | 11:38 | to feed themselves. | ||
270 | 11:40 | Instead, we can give them back their dignity. | ||
271 | 11:42 | Perhaps we can increase school attendance in schools. | ||
272 | 11:45 | We can improve the health outcomes for millions. | ||
273 | 11:48 | And, most importantly, we can reduce food waste in our landfills, | ||
274 | 11:51 | creating a better environment for all of us. | ||
275 | 11:54 | The thing I love most is that we can feel good about it in the process. | ||
276 | 11:58 | If we solve hunger, | ||
277 | 11:59 | we have nothing to lose and everything to gain. | ||
278 | 12:02 | So let's do it. | ||
279 | 12:03 | Thank you. | ||
280 | 12:05 | (Applause) | ||
281 | 12:07 | Thank you. |