The Global FoodBanking Network

The Global FoodBanking Network's mission is to nourish the world’s hungry through uniting and advancing food banks. We were started by a collaboration of food bank networks in the U.S., Mexico, Canada, and Argentina, and the belief that community-led solutions for hunger should be relevant across the globe. Now we’re a Network active in nearly 50 countries. In FY 2023, GFN member food banks recovered over 648M kilos of food and grocery products and re-directed this surplus to approximately 32 million persons facing hunger.

A world free of hunger.

Goal One: Expand food relief in Sub-Saharan Africa, South and East Asia, and Latin America through Knowledge Networks, Food Bank Incubator, and New Food Bank Development programs.

Goal Two: Strengthen food banks to serve vulnerable populations, develop child feeding and emergency response programs, and strengthen supply chains to achieve 2030 goal of improving food access for 50M people.

Goal Three: Establish GFN and members as leaders in food recovery and food loss and waste and advance policy agendas that solidify the role of food banks in resilient food systems.

GFN's executive team and directors have completed The Leadership Challenge's three-day in-person intensive workshop to learn how to model the way, inspire a shared vision, challenge the process, enable others to act, and encourage those around them. All staff members also participated in The Leadership Challenge's introductory in-person training session. Senior management is provided with executive coaching sessions, and all people managers have attended a workshop on effectively managing remote and hybrid staff. Additionally, senior management has allocated an amount in their budgets for professional development (courses, training, webinars, etc.) for each team member.

The long-term effects of the pandemic, increasingly disastrous impacts of climate change, rising cost-of-living costs, and conflict have only worsened the hunger crisis in the past year. GFN’s member food banks continue to face many challenges, including increased demand for food assistance, supply chain disruptions, human capital limitations, and more. Yet member food banks, along with technical support and funding from GFN, continue to serve more people and have distributed 128% more food over 2019 pre-COVID-19 levels. We are proud to report that the quality and cadence of our programs and the support we offer food banks have increased and largely remained uncompromised by the remote environment since March 2020. In addition to individualized technical support our field staff offer to each member food bank, we launched a pilot of Knowledge Networks, virtual cohorts for specific food bank topics like food safety and product sourcing for member food banks in Latin America, with plans to launch in other regions. The invasion of Ukraine in late February significantly impacted the world, including disrupting the global food system. GFN created an emergency response fund and raised over $1,265,000 to support our partner, the European Food Banks Federation, and provide support for food banks in and around Ukraine. In recent months, as COVID-19 restrictions have eased, GFN staff have resumed travel to member food banks to conduct essential in-person audits and assessments.