Food recovery organization rebrands as Spoonfuls, announces ambitious strategic plan
BOSTON, MA – A fleet of box trucks featuring a logo with a heart-shaped spoon on either side are ubiquitous with Lovin’ Spoonfuls’ food recovery work — but those trucks (and the nonprofit organization that uses them to deliver food five days a week to food assistance programs across Massachusetts) are getting a facelift. No more heart-shaped spoons. It’s part of a months-long rebrand as “Spoonfuls,” announced today, along with the debut of the organization’s new five-year strategic plan.
Said Spoonfuls’ founder and CEO, Ashley Stanley, “While the service we’re providing to communities across the Commonwealth is a scaled up version of what I launched here 14 years ago, today our look and our tagline reflects how we’ve grown up and what we’ve learned.”
Spoonfuls’ strategic plan outlines the organization’s commitment to improve food access and tackle the climate emergency through deepened partnerships and expanded food recovery operations in additional communities across Massachusetts and beyond by 2028. The announcement comes at a time when rates of food insecurity across the Commonwealth and the country are trending upwards – and it’s a welcome one, say advocates for food access and food assistance providers.
“We’ve been working side-by-side with Spoonfuls in the food assistance space for the last 14 years,” said David Waters, CEO of Community Servings, a partner of Spoonfuls focusing on nutritionally-dense food and medically-tailored meals. “Hunger has been a crisis in the Commonwealth and the country for far too long due to issues of food access, not food scarcity. Spoonfuls’ work has been a boon for food access in Greater Boston and beyond.”
With an operating budget of just over $5M and nine food recovery routes across the state, Spoonfuls’ professional staff picks up unsold, often close-dated, perishable food — fruits, vegetables, meats, and dairy — from grocery, wholesale, and farm partners and distributes it, same-day, to community organizations serving people facing food insecurity. Nothing is banked, which helps to ensure that food with a shorter shelf life reaches those who need it while it’s still good to eat.
Food from Spoonfuls’ deliveries reached over 370,000 Massachusetts’ residents facing food insecurity in 2023.
Delivering food with purpose
In step with the roll-out of the strategic plan, Spoonfuls’ Chief Advancement Officer, Erin Keohane, said the organization also added additional headcount in operations and public affairs over the last 12 months: key positions that set the stage for Spoonfuls’ hopeful expansion beginning in 2025. Those investments are already paying off, said Keohane, with the addition of Trader Joe’s, Shaw’s, Big Y, and MOM’s Organic Market locations added to Spoonfuls’ food donor roster over the past year.
“We’ve been longtime supporters of Spoonfuls’ work. We recognize their tagline, ‘delivering food with purpose,’ goes way beyond words,” said Miceal Chamberlain, President, Bank of America Massachusetts. “It’s a true reflection of their mission to provide healthy, fresh food as an immediate resource, scale food recovery efforts, and help tackle food insecurity. As a longstanding partner, we’re proud to support their work and continuous impact in our Greater Boston communities and beyond.”
Stanley pointed to the organization’s involvement in local, state, and national strategy work stemming from the 2022 White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health. “We’re so energized by the direction things are headed coming out of that conference. The comment period just closed on a draft national strategy focused on food loss and waste, and in Massachusetts, we’re working with Project Bread and others in the food insecurity and climate space to apply the lessons of that conference to our work here. Food recovery has never been so relevant and necessary.”