Muzyk applauded United Fresh’s effort to pivot to this on-line event once the in-person convention scheduled for this week in San Diego, CA, became impossible to hold. Quoting Charles Darwin, Muzyk said it is not the strongest nor the most intelligent that survive, “it’s those that have the ability to adapt to change.”
Baldor has added a beefed-up home delivery service with 100,000 consumers signing up to supplant its mostly restaurant distribution business. It has also partnered with retailers using its 300-truck fleet for direct store delivery of 24 staple produce items. He said he could not predict who would be the specific winners and losers when the dust settles from this pandemic, but did say that food will win, dusting off the concept that that category itself is recession proof.
Fitzgerald, who assumed her spot at the helm of Feeding America just five months ago, reported on the excellent service that food banks and other deliverers of food to the needy have provided since March 1. She noted that the Feeding American network, which encompasses every county in all 50 states, has provided 1.3 billion meals in the past three-and-a-half months, which represents a 40 percent increase over the previous year.
But it has not been enough. She said the pandemic and the resulting layoffs have produced a population in which one out of six adults and one out of four children are food insecure, meaning they do not have the financial ability to fill their own personal food needs.
