Evaluation of Food Machines

Ngan Nguyen

As from my point of view, Zach Lindenman presented the project very thoroughly about placing a machine with food inside where only be bought with a prepaid card. However, there should be an expansion toward this project. Helping people has been a passion of mine and seeing them presenting this topic fascinates me. Before Starbucks launched a food waste program, "food safety policies required baristas to discard salads, sandwiches and other refrigerated items after the designated expiration date even if the food could still be consumed." Starbucks is not the only company that throw food away at the end of the day, but various restaurants practice this. For Starbucks, they donate those leftovers to Food Bank which feeds about 5 million people. Locally, Zach's project is possible because food waste is a rising problem in America due to the lack of food in other countries. I personally think that the vending machines should not exist due to many serious factors such as safety and reputation. Meanwhile, there should be a federal department mainly concentrates on helping homeless people, not like SNAP. Within the federal department, the government could provide prepaid cards as Zach explained in class. Safety would be a problem within the store because consumers are frightened and could potentially be asked to give extra money. Of course, it is a great idea that a store supports these vending machines, but the reputation could go downhill. If there is a chaos caused by the homeless people, the news channel probably would state that particular store in the news. Also, it would be harder for policemen as they are driving around cautiously to make sure that the homeless people are not causing trouble. Vending machines only work best in Asian countries where there are more pedestrians. One of the article I read was about Miss Pauline, where she "opened a second location of her restaurant with one major addition: She put a fully functional refrigerator out front, and stocked it with food." She said, "so many people are wasting so much food and someone is taking that food from the same trash." She stocks about 200 to 300 packets of bread in her refrigerator daily, and it is gone overnight. I believe that Starbucks initial change is good, yet Pauline's idea is also great because she understands the needs of people in her country versus in America. Obviously, we cannot decrease the percentage of homeless people drastically, but at least we make a difference in someone else's life who is less fortunate than us.

Sources:

http://www.upworthy.com/a-woman-saw-hungry-people-digging-in-her-restaurants-trash-so-she-put-a-fridge-outside

https://news.starbucks.com/news/starbucks-food-donation-program