Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

Opportunity:

• Restaurants waste roughly 84.3% of usable, good food that could instead be sent to homeless shelters
• The Who: Lower income to homeless families
• The What: They are unable to provide themselves and/or their families with food 
• The Why: The restaurant business has not yet been fully utilized as source to provide food to shelters and organizations through their food waste 

Testing the who: In this case, the “who” does not only apply to Americans, but anyone across the country who suffers from hunger. The majority of people who fall under this category are going to range from homeless to lower income.

Testing the what: Not all restaurants are to blame for not contributing to this cause, a few restaurants in the US that abide by corporate social responsibility have begun to donate their leftovers. However, a vast majority of restaurants have not acted against this issue.

Testing the why: I understand why many restaurants have not yet begun contributing to the hunger cause, it’s more convenient not to. Currently, there are organizations that are trying to raise hunger awareness and collect donations, but none have gained enough ground to make a true impact in the issue. I think that this opportunity could not only help lower income families with food issues, but also help with food waste around the world. 

Interview 1: In this interview, I talked with an older high school female that has personally experienced hunger. She feels that not enough is being done in terms of actively donating food to those in need. Although it is a big issue in society, she said that she does not see it brought to the people’s eyes as much as she thinks it should be. Also, she stated that many organizations rely on people for food donations rather than seeking out influential companies that may be more reliable and substantive in their donations. 

Interview 2: This interview was done with a middle aged female that was raised in a financially unstable house, but is now stable. She said that growing up in poor community showed her how difficult it was for not only her family, but for her neighbors and friends to get food. They were always aware of how much food they were consuming and throwing away. She said now that she's financially stable and doesn't have to worry about her or her kids next meal that she is less conscious of how much she eats and throws away. 

Interview 3: This interview was done by a young male college student who has never been affected by hunger. Although never having been affected by hunger, he knows that it is a prevalent issue around the world. He tries to waste as little food as he can and saves all of his leftovers from restaurants so that way he can continue to eat them. However, his roommates are not the same way and he says he’s seen them throw out almost full plates of perfectly good food. 

Interview 4: This interview was done with a young male college graduate. He didn't realize how big of an issue hunger was throughout the states and does not actively keep check of how much food he wastes. He cant think of anyways that hunger can be improved aside from public donations. 

Interview 5: This interview was done by an older man who has one child in college and one that has graduated. He says that he knew that hunger was an issue, but that he never paid attention to it much. Him and his friends are not active donators to the cause and do not even know the names of some of the more common food donation organizations. Like the other interviews, he was unsure as to how much food waste he goes through per day and also didn't seem to concerned about what he throws away. 

Summary: What my interviews led me to believe, which is something that I had not thought of before, is that this is not an issue that can be left to the public to try and solve. For example, organizations like The Hunger Project rely on donations made by the public, but most people don’t actively donate, let alone even know the names of these organizations. Overall I found that people don't donate out of cruelty or spite, but simply out of habit. Food is a day to day thing for most people and from a young age we have been taught to eat and then throw away our leftovers. In order to be able to rely on the public, people need to be taught to donate to food causes earlier on in life. These two realizations made me believe that the majority of food donations should not come from the people but rather companies, solidifying my idea that restaurants could be a large source of food donations.