Nothing could describe Chen better than the term “quick-witted strategist.”

Last year, he managed to distribute 1,150 pounds of surplus vegetables from an organic farm in Yunlin County in less than two hours by delivering the produce to a community canteen for the elderly. “The problem was solved within the time it takes to drink a cup of coffee; we move very fast,” explains Chen in a laid-back, unhurried tone. 

Chen was able to remain on top of the situation thanks to the founding of the Taiwan Food Bank Association in late 2016, which brought together food producers and vendors who were ready to donate their excess food in a well-organized system. As a result, Chen was even invited to share the “Taiwan experience” at a meeting of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

                               

This successful experience builds on the interlinking of independent food banks as well as a good liaison with local social welfare groups, including village and neighborhood chief offices and non-profit organizations. More importantly, the association reinvented the established model of charitable food donations by involving the entire food supply chain. The association systematically distributes not just non-perishable items but also leftover perishables that are beyond the expiry date yet still edible to those in need. The supply chain spans producers such as farmers, intermediary produce packers (such as Easy Farm, which counts supermarket chain PX-Mart and hamburger chain Mos Burger among its customers) and food retailers such as hypermarket Carrefour, restaurant franchise 12 Hotpot and Unilever Taiwan. They have all joined to ensure that surplus food finds takers to reduce food waste.

Source: Jeff Chen 

Alleviating Poverty and Reducing Food Loss

“Before, the food banks provided food assistance and the goods were mainly sourced from donations. What we do now is avoid waste; we need to transform the entire food supply chain into a food bank so that the hidden waste in our society is turned into resources,” Chen, who doubles as secretary general of the Taichung Branch of the Red Cross Society, has given the food banks a new mission of “environmental sustainability” on top of their traditional endeavor of poverty alleviation.

In 2017, the association collected and distributed more than 300 tons of food. In 2018, this figure doubled to 610 tons. Such results were only possible thanks to the experience that they had accumulated.

Chen established Taiwan’s first brick-and-mortar food bank store in 2012. Back then, the Taichung Branch of the Red Cross Society won a contract from the local government for a food bank project. But Chen did not want to use the traditional approach of distributing goods because he thought these deliveries were “one-way donations” that failed to make sure that the recipients actually needed them. “If I send you a bag of rice or a pack of noodles and you have to take them even if you can’t use them,” is how Chen describes the procedure.

In contrast, he used the organization’s limited resources to open a “non-profit supermarket” at ASEAN Square in Taichung (then still called First Square) that opened for business every day. Its shelves were stocked with donated food items and daily necessities, and customers walked through the aisles pushing shopping carts. The difference, however, was that the goods were labeled with points instead of carrying price tags. “Customers” were able to shop by exchanging their monthly point allowance for the goods they truly needed. Not only was this a more dignified approach, it also helped to reach the goal of wasting fewer resources.

“You need to give people the feeling that they are shopping. On opening day, an old gentleman was moved to tears. He told me: ‘Before I was allocated things, but now I come here to buy them. This gives me a warm feeling’.“ A cluster of night clubs and other seedy businesses used to be in that location; it’s probably because of us moving in that the magnetic field of this place has changed. This is a very hip section of Taichung now,” asserts Chen.

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From Small Non-Perishables to a Fresh Produce Alliance

After the Association had made a name for itself with its food bank store, it began to collaborate with Carrefour in 2013, bringing together a dozen organizations including the Taiwan Carrefour Foundation, social welfare groups and various food banks. This “small alliance” stuck to the conventional model of distributing donated non-perishable food, but this changed when the Carrefour hypermarkets decided to donate leftover bread and perishables in 2016. They enlisted Chen’s help to find more than 100 local social welfare organizations across Taiwan, which gradually laid the foundations for the food donation distribution network we see today.

Getting there was not an easy task, because the recipients of the donated perishables needed to have adequate equipment such as basic storage, transport and kitchen equipment to ensure the goods’ freshness. Therefore, the receiving entities needed to be based near the more than 100 Carrefour hypermarkets. Yet not all of them had the capacity to properly process or use the food items. “Some were willing but lacked the capability; some felt the quantities were too small. It was difficult to find good matches,” says Chen. They spent more than a year before they had established a systematic institutional framework by setting up a “big alliance” that is the Taiwan Food Bank Association. 

“We depended on personal introductions and government information to introduce everyone to each other and form direct linkages. We held briefings where Carrefour people directly talked [about the project], and we visited five to six entities per day to build our network. Once the framework had been set up, things became much easier. For 12 Hotpot, for instance, it took only two months to come online,” recalls Chen.

The community canteen in Yunlin’s Hukou township is a case in point. Originally, the canteen equipment was inadequate and in bad shape, giving rise to concerns over a lack of hygiene and cleanliness. Since the eatery relied on limited government subsidies, it had difficulties recruiting a professional chef. As a result, the daily food donations were rarely used in an optimal way. Sponsored by Carrefour, the canteen was transformed into a modern central kitchen. It is now able to pay higher salaries to kitchen staff and has hired a driver for doorstep delivery of the donated foodstuffs. The resulting savings in food costs are used to subsidize the meal prices. They hope to eventually reach the goal of providing all meals for the elderly free of charge. 

Business Involvement Changes Non-profit Social Workers’ Approach

“When elderly local residents want to eat the community meals, they still need to pay NT$500 per month, but some people probably can't afford even that. Yunlin is a large agricultural county. We use ugly vegetables [that do not meet size or appearance standards], which allows us to realize cost-down. We hope to be able to provide one third of our meals free of charge. We also wish to increase the lunch and dinner output to 1,500 meals per day, which would amount to free meals worth NT$6.6 million per annum, an amount we could recoup through fundraising within a year. And we could still factor in government subsidies. Presently, we are running trial operations. If we turn a profit, we will use the entire amount for charity,” explains Chen, who does not come across as a non-profit organization manager at all when talking numbers.

For sure, Chen’s innovative approach has to do with his professional background. Before joining the Red Cross Society, Chen, who was born in the Year of the Dragon and will turn 54 this year, worked in sales for Taichung-based major power supplies manufacturer Universal Microelectronics Co. Ltd. (UMEC). Once he was also posted to China as manager in the sales and production management department where he was in charge of introducing the Oracle platform. Upon invitation by a former colleague, Chen subsequently joined the Red Cross Society, crossing over from the tech industry into the nonprofit sector.

“I was hurt by ‘bad people’, haha...I thought to myself, let’s give it a try. The Red Cross Society had only three people back then; I was shocked  as soon as I saw this after walking in,” says Chen with a laugh. His industry experience also helped transform the Red Cross Society, which originally heavily relied on donations and government funds and subsidies. Chen, however, felt that the organization needed to explore sources of sustainable income. Therefore, the society went to offer paid services such as holding first-aid training sessions for companies. It was only later that Chen discovered that the rather undeveloped food bank sector in Taiwan could become a “new business” for the Red Cross Society. 

“Social worker training centers on human beings but does not include business training. So people felt that this secretary general was a bit of a weirdo at first because he had a corporate background. Nevertheless, I realized that food banks are the ‘blue ocean’ of the nonprofit sector, which is why we mainly do this part now. The association does not actually pay me a salary; my salary is still paid by the Red Cross Society. I am very grateful to the Red Cross Society,” says Chen.

Running a Non-profit Operation with Corporate Management Concepts

Chen’s career background was enormously helpful for popularizing food banks. While food banks are social service charities per se, the efficiency and speed required to successfully manage the entire system (after all, perishable goods cannot be left sitting around for several days) hardly differ from what is essential in running a company. Unilever Taiwan, for example, joined last year, donating Knorr packet soups and other daily necessities. Yet to ensure that the Unilever delivery truck directly sends the donated goods to the receiving entities in the most efficient way, a number of questions need to be answered first. How are the goods donated? Where will they be delivered? Who is going to collect them? When will they be collected? In the end, meticulous planning and execution is necessary to handle seemingly simple logistic tasks.  

“I took Jeff on a tour of our shipping warehouse. He told me at first glance where we should make changes to run things more smoothly. Because he has a corporate background, communication is much easier,” notes Jennifer Yu, sustainable business manager at Unilever Taiwan. 

Taiwan-style Food Bank Enjoys International Reputation

Internationally, more people are taking note of Taiwan’s system, given that even multinational companies are willing to be part of it. Interested organizations from Southeast Asia are visiting to learn from Taiwan’s experience. Chen points out that conditions on the ground differ from country to country, also necessitating differing approaches. As a city state, Singapore lacks agricultural land, and property prices in the city center are prohibitively expensive, so a food bank store would find it difficult to survive there. Malaysia, for its part, does not lack land, but due to the country’s size, distributing upstream perishable food efficiently presents a challenge. Therefore, Malaysia’s performance stands out in the field of sharing cooked food. In contrast, Taiwan was able to establish a food bank system with “Taiwanese characteristics” that integrates the upstream and downstream supply chain because the island is rather small, and has a well-developed agricultural industry and the ability to run community-based food banks.  

“In Malaysia, it takes eight hours to travel from the north to the south, while in Taiwan you can deliver within 40 minutes, which means you can save on logistics costs. You don’t even have to worry about frozen goods. If you ship frozen Taiwanese sea bream with a temperature of minus 18 degrees Celsius to Taichung, it will still be very cold on arrival,” asserts Chen.

For the next step, Chen hopes to expand the sharing of hot meals using unsold lunchboxes and leftover food from self-serve buffets. This is quite a challenging goal given that prepared food must be consumed within four hours. While restaurants and supermarkets want to prevent food loss, they also fear being held liable should someone get sick after eating a shared meal.

“The supermarkets don’t want to do this because they are afraid their business will take a hit if someone gets diarrhea from a [donated] lunchbox,” says Chen.

Chen tackles all these challenges with undaunted enthusiasm and humor: “I consider this a mission that Heaven has entrusted me with. So I must accomplish it.” 

Translated by Susanne Ganz
Edited by TC Lin, Sharon Tseng