The team at Slalom Consulting helped FFEN update the way it captures and analyzes food bank data for its Food Sourcing Analysis Report
The team at Slalom Consulting worked to overhaul FFEN’s data analysis work resulting in a more streamlined, impactful and timely Food Sourcing Analysis for food shelves
Through its “Partners for Good” initiative, Slalom Consulting’s Minneapolis firm is providing professional pro bono work to 21 different local and global organizations.
The larger company, spread across 49 offices in 10 countries, has at its core, a desire to “do what is right always” and “build and shape a better future.”
In 2023, Slalom contributed more than 29,000 pro-bono hours to more than 400 organizations across the globe. From the local Minneapolis office, the company invested 3,178 hours – a value of $641,000 – of pro bono work to its Twin Cities partners.
In November, Slalom began working with FFEN to overhaul our data analysis work – the work that helps food shelves understand the mix of food at their site and captures where and how they are spending their dollars.
The project, which integrated the database and reporting system, spanned 448 hours. A team of five consultants worked on the project from November through August.
“We have a lot of pride in being able to partner with organizations like FFEN. We are thoughtful about the work we take on in a pro bono capacity and we get excited to help organizations that make a difference in our community actualize their mission and vision.”
Allegra Montanari, Slalom’s Partners for Good team
“This project allows FFEN to be more responsive and timelier in providing data to food shelves,” said Kate Burggraff, FFEN’s executive director. “We can look at data in a more dynamic way and in the context of the state and region. It will allow us to look at trends over time, instead of a point in time which is valuable.”
Slalom’s team has special expertise that allowed the movement of data and the creation of a live connection to the data. This connection, Burggraff said, will eventually mean food shelves could use FFEN’s Food Sourcing Analysis to guide decisions on how they are sourcing food while there’s still time to impact the bottom line and make stocking adjustments for that period.
Staff is still assessing the new reporting method, but food shelves could begin to see the more detailed and visual reports and trends as early as this fall with a full roll out later in 2025.
Sneha Richhariya, senior consultant of Slalom’s Data & Analytics practice, provided project oversight.
“Before we started working with FFEN they were mostly doing reporting out of spreadsheets, manually doing the spreadsheets and handling a lot of data,” Richhariya said. “FFEN’s team is very good at documentation. I have never seen documentation as detailed, even with big clients, as the FFEN team is doing. Their documentation is really on another level.”
Richhariya said FFEN’s work is in line with Slalom’s own mission.
“We know that FFEN’s objective is, to itself, give back to the community and us supporting them in any way that is possible, it is a little bit of impact we can make.”
Allegra Montanari, of Slalom’s Partners for Good leadership team agreed.
“The way you lead strategically as an organization to fight against food insecurity and build and shape a better future is valuable,” she said. “There’s a lot of alignment and a lot of love there for FFEN.”
