Feeding San Diego is a non-profit organization that has a mission to connect every person facing hunger with nutritious meals by maximizing food rescue. Established in 2007, Feeding San Diego rescues surplus food from local and national food donors before it goes to waste and gets it to people facing hunger in San Diego County. Coinciding with Hunger Action Month, FSD announced that it has partnered with Amazon Local Good to reduce transportation costs.
Amazon Local Good is Amazon’s pro bono logistics support program that donates transportation routes to local charities and non-profits. Since the partnership began in January of this year, Amazon Local Good has helped Feeding San Diego save over $100,000 in freight costs and has transported over 1.3 million pounds of food for the organization. This partnership comes at a time when demand for hunger-relief programs remains elevated throughout San Diego County and food costs are up about 25% since 2019.
“Having a powerhouse corporation like Amazon behind us is an invaluable asset to our supply chain team,” said Patty O’Connor, chief operations officer of Feeding San Diego in a press release. “Simply put, being a part of the Amazon Local Good program helps us stretch our dollars to ensure that we can continue to provide much-needed nutritious food to people experiencing hunger in San Diego County. With high inflation in recent years, our budgets have had to adjust to the rising costs of gas, labor, and vehicle maintenance, among other key aspects of our operation. We are so thankful to Amazon Local Good for supporting our mission and our neighbors who need access to nutritious meals.”
Last year, Feeding San Diego distributed over 33 million pounds of food in San Diego County. The non-profit sources its food from all over the country, utilizing its partnership with Feeding America to take advantage of large quantities of products available from manufacturers and distributors. For example, Amazon trucks recently delivered donated pasta from Washington and rice from Mississippi to Feeding San Diego’s facility in Sorrento Valley.
Amazon Local Good and Feeding San Diego have been working together to use Amazon trucks to transport a wide variety of food from locations all over the country to San Diego, where it is distributed via the non-profit organization’s hunger-relief programs. With continued high inflation, non-profits are grappling with rising costs across the board. One of the biggest costs to a hunger-relief organization is freight for transporting food, including labor and fuel costs. Having a corporate partner donate freight greatly helps cut costs and frees up funds for Feeding San Diego to purchase additional or higher quality food items.
“Amazon is committed to leveraging our logistics expertise and network to make meaningful impact within communities. We are excited to be partnering with Feeding San Diego to increase community access to nutritious meals and to find new and innovative ways to tackle food security,” stated Amanda Adcock-Worthy, head of Amazon Local Good.
