A food bank supply chain model: Optimizing investments to maximize food assistance

Food banks are initiatives that redistribute food at risk of becoming waste to people that are food insecure in middle- and high-income countries. These initiatives, which have become more prevalent in recent years, face high levels of uncertainty in their supply chain. Inspired by challenges facing the food banks in The Netherlands, this paper describes an optimization model that can assist food bank supply chains with the distribution of an available investment budget in order to increase the number of beneficiaries that can receive food assistance. Strategic investments can be used to tackle shortages in transport, storage, and food donations. The optimization model prioritizes investments that will have the largest positive social impact, which we define as the number of beneficiaries that can be served by the food banks. Furthermore, the model deals with real-world circumstances, such as decentralized organizations, data scarcity, location-specific transport and storage capacities, and strong diversity in food bank operations. The model is applied using real-life data from the food bank supply chain in The Netherlands and the results establish investments that increase capacity and will serve 32% more beneficiaries. The association of Dutch food banks has made practical application of these findings.