Food shelf leaders have been intentionally engaging shoppers at the food shelf to find out what’s working at their sites and where they could improve.
“It’s important to see services through the eyes of someone accessing food,” said Katie Bull, FFEN’s director of programs. “When we hear directly from shoppers we remove assumptions about what kind of food they need and what barriers they may be having at the food shelf.”
Four food shelves took different approaches over the course of the last year as part of FFEN’s Engaging Community Voice in Food Shelf Decision Making pilot. This was the final round of the pilot and now, the tools and resources developed with the help of these test sites will be fully embedded into FFEN’s Process Improvement Consultations which include layout and design and operational process changes. They are also available to food shelves on FFEN’s Resource Hub so leaders can access them at any time.
“This isn’t a nice layer on top of the cake, this is where you start. It’s essentially good business; it means food doesn’t go to waste.”
Kate BurGgraff – FFEN Executive Director
Kate Burggraff, FFEN’s executive director, said as demand at food shelves continues to rise and they’re challenged with limited resources, it is even more paramount for food shelves to use the resources they have in the best way possible. Stocking foods shoppers don’t need or want isn’t the best way to steward donor dollars or have the greatest impact, Burggraff said.
“This isn’t a nice layer on top of the cake, this is where you start,” Burggraff said. “It’s essentially good business; it means food doesn’t go to waste.”
To hear from shoppers, FFEN has helped food shelves hold focus groups, one-on-one interviews, community meals and open houses.
For Sharon Abel, the executive director of Groveland Emergency Food Shelf, the support from FFEN was crucial in gathering shopper feedback. Abel said they wouldn’t have been able to survey shoppers on their own as the site serves hundreds of people a day.
“The interviews really helped us understand what our guests were happy with, and what areas we could improve upon,” Abel said. “While I wanted to change our hours for a while, FFEN doing the interviews really showed how important the hours change could and would be for folks.”
Abel said that since expanding the hours, they’ve been able to serve hundreds more shoppers who couldn’t make it in with the previous hours. The feedback they received is also guiding changes as the food shelf works through a Process Improvement and layout re-design project with FFEN.
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“As an executive director you often just have to do what you can when you have the time,” Abel said. “Working with FFEN helped me make this a priority and take it in bite-sized pieces. I was able to benefit from their expertise and experience. I feel like they were able to see my vision better than I could at the start of this.”
Bull said that while a lot of food shelf leaders understand the value of shopper feedback, they don’t have the time, tools or strategies to make it happen.
“Our goal is to make it easier for food shelf leaders to center their work around the experience people have when accessing food,” Bull said.
See how four Minnesota food shelves are making change using FFEN guidance and support tools:
