Presenter: Alexis Macy Trendel

Faculty Sponsor: Leda Cooks

School: UMass Amherst

Research Area: Communication and Media Studies

Session: Poster Session 1, 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM, 163, C12

ABSTRACT

Food insecurity and food waste exist simultaneously in Western Massachusetts, leading to a gap between surplus food and community need. It is this gap that inspired Rachel’s Table, a food recovery nonprofit, to begin their food rescue operations and gleaning programs to redistribute food to residents of Western Massachusetts. Since 1992, Rachel’s Table has made major impacts, providing over 1.2 million pounds of food to about 120,000 people across Western Massachusetts. However, they lack a strong internal data system to fully support their operations, a challenge shared by many nonprofit food rescue organizations.

This research uses Rachel’s Table as a case study by improving their internal data operations. Several challenges have been identified in their current data system, including time spent on manual data downloading and cleaning, limited data searchability, no centralized database, and limited data visualization. Using a case- and community-based approach to examine the relationship between food recovery operations and data systems, this study will integrate qualitative insights from Rachel’s Table staff and quantitative insights from a technical standpoint to improve internal efficiency. For Rachel’s Table, these improvements will focus on data upload automation, centralized databases, and improved analytics and visualizations. On a larger scale, the findings of this research will provide a model for how other food rescue nonprofits can benefit from stronger data systems to improve their efficiency in collecting and redistributing food to people and communities experiencing food insecurity.