How Barbara Bronstein Of Second Servings of Houston Is Helping To Address The Growing Challenge Of Food Insecurity
An Interview With Martita Mestey
“You need to be willing to take risks.” When we created the mass meal relief program in response to the Covid-19 crisis, we started buying the ingredients. We had never paid for food, so it was a risk. Being conservative by nature, I lost a lot of sleep, but in the end, I knew it was the right thing to do.
In many parts of the United States, there is a crisis of people having limited reliable access to a sufficient quantity of affordable, nutritious food. As prices rise, this problem will likely become more acute. How can this problem be solved? Who are the leaders helping to address this crisis?
In this interview series, we are talking to leaders who are helping to address the increasing problem of food insecurity who can share the initiatives they are leading to address and solve this problem.
As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Barbara Bronstein.
Barbara Bronstein is Founder and President of Second Servings of Houston, the city’s only perishable food rescue organization. A New York native, she has resided in Houston for more than 30 years. After graduating from Tufts University, she earned an MBA in Marketing from New York University. After a successful career marketing some of America’s leading brands for Unilever, Mars and Coca-Cola, Barbara founded Second Servings of Houston to address the staggering rates of food insecurity and food waste in Houston. Under her pro bono leadership, Second Servings has become one of the city’s fastest-growing nonprofits, helping nourish over 175,000 needy Houstonians with high-quality food all year long. Barbara has been honored with the Houston Business Journal’s “Women Who Mean Business” Award in 2021, Mayor’s Proud Partner Award in 2019, the Houston Humanitarian Award in 2019, the Compassionate Action Leader Award in 2019 and was named a “Houston Hero” by the Houston Chronicle in 2018. In addition to Barbara’s outstanding community service, she is an active member of the Houston Culinary Guild.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I grew up in a household with Depression-era parents who didn’t waste food. It always troubled me when I’d see a lot of last-minute no-shows at banquets. I knew their food was paid for and in the kitchen, and found out that it was usually getting thrown away. So before attending a large charity banquet in 2013, I arranged for a soup kitchen to pick up any unserved food. After a year of making arrangements like this, I did a lot of research and discovered what I was doing was called “food rescue” and that it was going on all over the country, but surprisingly, not in Houston. With a food insecurity rate that was much greater than that of the overall U.S. rate, and with estimates that between 30 to 40 percent of the available food supply goes to waste, I was determined to do more for the needy in my community. I consulted with the health department, as well as experts in the fields of social services, law, and foodservice. Then I conducted a pilot test program for seven months to assess the feasibility of food rescue. Once I knew it could work, I chose best practices for Houston from across the spectrum of American food rescue organizations, and began operations when the city’s largest hotel signed on for a weekly donation of its surplus food in 2015.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I was invited to be the keynote speaker at an all-girls’ high school to introduce the theme for their 2019–2020 academic year, which was “Sustainability.” I talked about one of the biggest causes of food waste being the confusing dates on packages, and mentioned I had eaten yogurt that was three months past the date on the package. When the girls heard that, they audibly gasped! I still chuckle when I think about their reaction.
Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Are there takeaways or lessons that others can learn from that?
When Covid-19 struck in mid-March 2020, it severely disrupted the food supply chain. Businesses and schools were suddenly forced to close and events were cancelled. With the devastating impact of Covid and the oil industry collapse on people’s employment, we knew the need for food was skyrocketing way beyond the 17 percent food insecurity rate that was present in Houston before the crisis. Being small and nimble, we quickly responded by creating a mass meal relief program. One of our corporate foodservice partners created family meals using ingredients Second Servings started buying for the first time. Spending operating funds on food was a big risk that I decided we needed to take to serve our community during the crisis, and it paid off. Our efforts prompted an outpouring of support from the community. This was the “tipping point” that provided the sound financial base upon which we have been able to expand our food rescue operations.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person to whom you are grateful who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My husband is a serial entrepreneur who encouraged me all along the way, since I had never started a business from scratch. As an active member of our Board, he has made a lot of important connections to supporters and services. He has a huge network of contacts in a variety of fields and is always promoting Second Servings. For instance, when we moved into our new office/warehouse and needed furniture, he reached out to several real estate colleagues to see if anyone had any office tenants that might have furniture to donate. It turned out that one had a tenant that was consolidating offices and was able to donate a complete set of beautiful like-new furniture, easily worth over $25,000, that was perfect for our new space. And we were able to donate our previous office’s furniture (which had also been donated to us) to one of our charity partners, for a win-win!
You are a successful leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?
-Perseverance: Starting a business requires a tremendous amount of time and effort, both of which I was willing to invest. When I first thought about starting a non-profit organization focused on food insecurity and food waste, I was committed to making it work. I didn’t realize it would require 60 hours a week, including some weekends and weeknights, or include the challenges of a pandemic.
— Resourcefulness: I’ve been able to access outstanding strategic and tactical business assistance, from graduate students, college interns, attorneys, and many others. We also have many dedicated volunteers who ride along with our drivers each day, helping with their pickups and deliveries. Because we are a well-regarded nonprofit providing a unique service, many people have generously donated their time and services because they believe in our mission and genuinely want to help. When the pandemic shutdowns occurred, severely disrupting the food supply chain, we quickly forged new alliances to help make truckload food pickups. We turned to a party tent rental company that had idle resources, since events were all canceled. We also got help from a municipality with an idle Parks & Recreation truck, since the parks were all closed.
-Open-mindedness: I like challenging everyone to think of ways to do things better than we’ve done them before. I find this inspires fresh thinking and new, creative ideas for constant improvements. When the pandemic struck and we augmented our normal business of serving nonprofits, with a program serving the public directly, we pivoted easily because we are accustomed to problem-solving and recognize that quick responsiveness is critical.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“Always do your best. That’s all anyone can expect of you.” My mother often used these words to calm my fears of failure throughout my life. As a bit of a perfectionist, I was always brought down to earth with these words, which made me realize that doing my best, not perfection, was the goal. These words still echo in my head whenever I am stressing over a speaking engagement or Zoom presentation, writing a grant application, or leading my Second Servings team.
Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. Can you describe to our readers how your work is helping to address the challenge of food insecurity?
Second Servings began operations in 2015, picking up unsold and unserved food from food businesses, such as retailers, manufacturers, sports venues, schools, hotels, and others, and delivering it the same day in refrigerated vans, to nonprofit organizations. This perfectly edible surplus food from more than 400 food donors now reaches 175,000 Houstonians annually through 90 nonprofits, including soup kitchens, homeless shelters, low-income housing, food pantries, and more. Our food helps nourish veterans, abused women and children, disabled homeless seniors, at-risk youth, adults in recovery, low-income families and seniors, the LGBTQ community, and a diversity of other underserved populations.
We are able to save charities money in their food budgets, which they report using to serve more people, add services, and/or pay overhead. We help households stretch their strained budgets, as well as gain convenient, free access to healthy foods they usually wouldn’t have.
Besides being a practical and efficient way to address food insecurity, food rescue also provides environmental sustainability. By preventing millions of pounds of surplus food from going to the landfill, Second Servings reduces the potent methane that decomposing food emits, which contributes significantly to climate change.
Can you share something about your work that makes you most proud? Is there a particular story or incident that you found most uplifting?
The dedication of our food rescue drivers, staff, and volunteers makes me most proud. They share my passion for serving the community and preventing perfectly good food from going to waste. While everyone on our team works hard every day, they have worked exceptionally hard throughout the Covid pandemic. While it has been exhausting, the past two years’ efforts have resulted in the delivery of almost twice the amount of food than in the previous two-year period. And pre-vaccine, when Covid spiked in July 2020, and to keep our drivers as safe as possible, we eliminated volunteers from riding along as helpers. Our drivers worked solo for an entire year, rain or shine and through the hot, sticky summer, and never once complained.
One of our goals is to save our charities at least 10% in their food budgets. When I heard one of our charities was able to replace their antiquated air conditioning system with the money they saved as a result of Second Servings’ food deliveries, I was thrilled — especially since Houston can be extremely hot and humid several months of the year.
In your opinion, what should other business and civic leaders do to further address these problems? Can you please share a few things that can be done to further address the problem of food insecurity?
-Leaders can help by dispelling the misperception many businesses have that food donation isn’t legal. Not only is it legal, but it is encouraged by the government, which protects food donors from liability with the Emerson Good Samaritan Food Donation Act. When businesses donate food in good faith to a nonprofit like Second Servings, they don’t have to worry about being sued.
-Leaders can also encourage major food businesses to participate in food rescue. Beyond the obvious benefit of feeding people in need, businesses can recognize an enhanced tax deduction, reduce waste disposal fees, boost their public image and improve employee morale. Increasingly, employees are looking to join or remain at organizations whose beliefs align with theirs, and an organization’s food rescue efforts can be viewed as a great benefit.
-Leaders need to recognize food waste is a pressing problem, which they can turn into an opportunity to efficiently address food insecurity. Not only does food waste deny people nourishment, but it also crowds the landfill and contributes to climate change.
Are there other leaders or organizations who have done good work to address the challenge of food scarcity? Can you tell us what they have done? What specifically impresses you about their work? Perhaps we can reach out to them to include them in this series.
I have been inspired by Arlan Preblud, Founder and Executive Director of “We Don’t Waste” in Denver, CO. He has built an impressive food rescue organization that addresses the needs of his community in a variety of creative, innovative ways, such as mobile produce markets and a police department initiative addressing homelessness. He has always been generous with his time and advice to me, as we’ve expanded our operations.
If you had the power to influence legislation, are there laws that you would like to see introduced that might help you in your work?
The first law would be one that standardizes the date labeling system across the country to minimize confusion. Currently, package labeling rules, such as “best by,” “sell by,” “best if used before,” vary widely by state, and cause 85 percent of Americans to throw away food before it’s actually unsafe to eat. In fact, only one item in the supermarket is federally mandated to carry a date, and that’s infant formula. The rest of the dates are generally the manufacturer’s best guess at peak quality or for shelf rotation, but not food safety. The second law would be to ban the disposal of edible food by businesses of a certain size, and mandate that the food be donated to feed people.
What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started” and why? Please share a story or example for each.
- “There are going to be setbacks. When one of our refrigerated vans was declared a total loss following a tire blow-out on the highway, I was devastated. At the time, it put half of our mini-fleet out of commission. More recently, two of our four refrigerated vans were vandalized-not once or twice, but three times! We were victims of the spate of catalytic converter thefts that were occurring across the country. Besides the extra cost, we had to wait for parts, which were in high demand. The result was that our vans were off the road several times, for days or weeks, awaiting servicing. Thankfully, when we moved to an office/warehouse this year, we can safely park our vans inside.”
- “You will face resistance from food businesses that think it isn’t legal to donate food.” We continue to dispel this misperception among some businesses by educating about the business benefits of food donation and the protection against liability. However, as more and more well-respected food businesses come on board, this has become less of an issue.
- “You need to be willing to take risks.” When we created the mass meal relief program in response to the Covid-19 crisis, we started buying the ingredients. We had never paid for food, so it was a risk. Being conservative by nature, I lost a lot of sleep, but in the end, I knew it was the right thing to do.
- “You may lose friends.” At the beginning, I relied on a couple of friends to help get the business off the ground. They didn’t realize the time commitment that was required, and unfortunately, we ended up parting ways.
- “Other nonprofits addressing hunger relief may not want to collaborate.” I’ve been disappointed to learn that instead of engaging in a productive collaboration, some see us, mistakenly, as competitors.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would like to educate the public to trust their senses when judging whether a product was still safe to eat, rather than relying on confusing and virtually meaningless package dates. This would have the biggest impact on food waste reduction, as well as yield profound economic and environmental benefits.
Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them. 🙂
That would be Chef José Andrés, founder of World Central Kitchen, who has done so much to serve people in need around the world. He has brought attention to the fact that excess food shouldn’t go to waste, but rather feed people. He is the most prominent spokesperson for food waste prevention, citing that “the right use of food can end hunger.”
How can our readers further follow your work online?
In addition to our website (https://secondservingshouston.org), we are on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/secondservingshouston), Instagram (@secondservingshouston), and LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/second-servings-of-houston/)
This was very meaningful, thank you so much, and we wish you only continued success.
How Barbara Bronstein Of Second Servings of Houston Is Helping To Address The Growing Challenge Of… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.