Starbucks Employees Tackle Food Waste, Feed Hungry with FoodShare Program

Employees have always been a central aspect of Starbucks’ CSR efforts, whether that’s helping baristas get a college education or facilitating conversations in stores around issues like race. Now, employees have stepped forward to provide feedback on the company’s own operations, telling the coffee giant it’s time to holistically address food waste – and Starbucks listened.

Food waste is a major issue within the sustainability world. In the U.S. alone, 70 billion pounds of food are wasted each year, while one in seven people struggles with hunger. This juxtaposition was all too real for Starbucks employees, who would have to throw out pounds of unsold perishable food items day after day. At the urging of its employees, Starbucks began an in-depth process to explore a safe method to add perishable foods to its existing pastry donation program. Now, Starbucks has announced FoodShare, a program that will allow the company to donate “ready-to-eat meals to food banks from its 7,600 company-owned stores in the U.S.”

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