A recent report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) finds that federal and state policies affecting food bank donations fail to prioritize nutritious food donations over unhealthy donations.

The report finds that out of 42 federal and 253 state laws, regulations, and administrative decisions related to the charitable food system (CFS), only 43, or 14.6 percent, address the nutritional quality of food donations.

“With 60 million people accessing the CFS in 2020, the public health implications of not providing nutritious food to people turning to the system are enormous and important to address,” Emily Friedman, Legal Fellow at CSPI and co-author of the report, tells Food Tank.

In the United States, food banks, are serving 55 percent more people than before the pandemic, according to Feeding America. The CSPI report aims to understand how federal and state governments can better leverage public policy to provide more nutritious food and limit unhealthy donations to food banks.

CSPI researchers collaborated with the Lerner Center for Public Health Promotion at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to search legal databases for federal and state public policies affecting food donation. Researchers sorted and analyzed relevant policies into 10 categories: liability protection, date labeling, government programs, donations via schools, wild game donations, tax incentives, grant programs, food safety, policies authorizing donation of certain food, and organic waste bans. Out of 295 policies, liability protection policies comprise the majority, at 23.2 percent of total policies, followed by date labeling at 14.6 percent.

Read the full article about nutritious food donations by Vicky Brown Varela at Food Tank.