Food donation : an initiative to mitigate hunger in the world

Hundreds of thousands of tons of food are either lost or wasted while millions of people suffer from malnutrition. A plausible initiative are the food banks in which large retail chains and potentially other organizations can donate food. This food is collected and delivered by food banks to people in need. Such food banks have helped thousands of people but still the percentages are negligible as compared to the large quantities of food that are wasted with no more reason that destroying is cheaper. On the other hand, food banks have also their own problems: Poor distribution strategies, informality in handling and delivering food, lack of infrastructure, the mismatch between the supply and nutrition needs, among others. As consequence, research and actions are needed to improve the efficiency of food banks.