A focus on top foods brings down costs, still provides selection
Shortly after Angie Cruzen, director of Gather & Grow Food Shelf in Waconia, took over a second food shelf in Watertown, she requested a Food Sourcing Analysis report from FFEN.
“The tool was used to say, ‘This is where we’re at, this is where the money is going, these are the areas we need to improve on,” Cruzen said.
“Our biggest goal is to be sustainable, to keep our doors open and to keep as much as we can on our shelves.”
Angie Cruzen, director of Gather & Grow Food shelf
Between the two sites, Cruzen said the food shelves help 550 families each month. Her goal when she took on Watertown was to alleviate pressure at the Waconia location, which offers a variety of fresh produce and proteins. Cruzen wanted to add the same offerings in Watertown, which focused primarily on shelf-stable goods, and as she did so, she focused on costs.
At Waconia alone, growing demand had her looking to the community for additional donations to cover a 20% increase in service. She looked for creative ways to bring down costs while still supplying quality and choices.
“Our biggest goal is to be sustainable, to keep our doors open and to keep as much as we can on our shelves.”
The FSA from FFEN helped her to do that.
With the help of a customized Food Sourcing Analysis Report and Consultation, Gather & Grow:
* Studies the offerings at its two food shelves and worked to improve product mix at its Watertown site to begin to resemble the mix available at Waconia.
* Targets food donation drives in the community to cover the foods they have previously purchased for the food shelf, maintaining variety while reducing costs.
* Explains budgetary considerations and purchasing decisions to its board.
* Considers food categories and adjusts purchasing to match community needs and budgetary considerations.
Cruzen said she looked at all the food categories in the report and determined which of the higher demand foods she was purchasing could come in through targeted food drives. Each time a community organization asks what the food shelf needs, she focuses on specific foods she had been spending dollars on to reduce costs and still supply the same variety.
“Asking for the top six things we need is much more effective than collecting random donations,” she said. “We’re really trying to be strategic, looking at a full 12 months, where are our gaps for when we have drives, when we have fundraisers. It allows us to be a lot more mindful of where we’re spending our money.”
She moved peanut butter off the list of items she purchased for the food shelf and instead, now only receives it through donation. She no longer orders things like juice or sugar, opting instead to spend the dollars on fresh produce.
Cruzen’s purchasing aligns closely with the most important foods, as identified by a survey of 7,000 food shelf shoppers https://www.supershelfmn.org/minnesota-statewide-survey. That statewide survey identified fresh produce, protein, milk, and eggs as the top in-demand foods at food shelves. The data from the survey and the report from FFEN, Cruzen said, are important in talking with the board about budgetary considerations and purchasing.
The reports are a way to continually look at food categories and adjust purchasing.
“The (report) is such a value add for a food shelf, food spend is such a (large) line item in your budget,” she said. “To make educated choices about what to order rather than say ‘this is going off the shelf really fast,’ is so important.”
The reports, she said, validate what she is doing at the sites and provide perspective on how her work stacks up to other food shelves in the state.
“I think the reports really are priceless,” Cruzen said. “The amount of time it would take me to dig in and get those quantitative results, I don’t have time for that.”
