“Day after day we hear stories about locally-led food banks who are innovating in the face of new and persistent challenges related to COVID-19. It is their entrepreneurial spirit and deep commitment to serving their community that fills us with inspiration and momentum as we enter 2021. The Global FoodBanking Network is powering the most vital asset these communities have—their leaders. This crisis is not over. We cannot stop now.” – Lisa Moon, President & CEO, The Global FoodBanking Network

Prior to COVID-19 two billion people worldwide faced food insecurity. Today, millions more are food insecure and approximately 271.2 million are facing acute food shortages due to the pandemic. Now more than ever, The Global FoodBanking Network (GFN) is committed to supporting the knowledge, infrastructure, and innovations needed on the ground to achieve zero hunger. The Powering Communities for Zero Hunger: COVID-19 Impact Report highlights the work of food banks in the Network from mid-March through the end of October 2020. During this time food banks served 27.6 million people, up from 16.9 million during all of 2019. Close to 11 million new people have sought support from their local food bank during the pandemic, an average of 200,000 additional people per food banking organization. As of October 2020, 53 percent of food banks/national networks reported that they were still seeing a 51 percent or more increase in demand for emergency food assistance. Thirty-five percent reported that increase in demand is more than 91 percent. In response to the pandemic, GFN has invested 19,000 hours of technical assistance and programming activity in food banking organizations across 51 countries worldwide. In an effort to fast-track valuable product donations, GFN more than doubled its number of partnerships with multinational food companies in 2020—now with 68 partners for sourcing food and grocery products. Download the full COVID-19 Impact Report here.