Last year proved to be another year of uncertainty — around the world, 2.3 billion people face food insecurity, which is exacerbated by the climate crisis and conflict. 

In the midst of challenging realities, food banks across the globe are stepping up to ensure access to food for millions of people while addressing root causes of climate change. We don’t know what 2025 will hold for communities already struggling with food insecurity. But we do know that food banks will continue to be there for their communities, and they will continue to address hunger in innovative ways. 

As we start a new year, here are a few of the strategies we think food banks may use to continue to improve their communities. 

Agricultural Recovery 

Agricultural recovery programs are partnerships between food banks and small- and large-scale farmers to collect surplus produce that would otherwise go to waste and instead distribute it to people facing hunger. Some GFN members have been implementing agricultural recovery programs for many years, but we’re seeing more and more interest in this area. 

This year, to help food banks interested in starting or scaling these programs, GFN has established the Agricultural Recovery Hub based in Nairobi, Kenya. The Hub’s goal is to facilitate shared learning and expertise among food banks. This month, the Hub is launching a community of practice that provides a platform for more effective knowledge exchange and innovation sharing.  

Additionally, GFN funds an exchange program that allows food banks interested in starting an agricultural recovery program to visit food banks with established programs in other countries.

Shifting Food Systems through Policy 

Increasingly, food banks are promoting and advocating for national policies that strengthen food systems, allowing more nutritious food to reach people facing hunger while addressing the problem of food loss and waste. 

For the last five years, GFN and Harvard Law School’s Food Law and Policy Clinic have partnered on the Global Food Donation Policy Atlas, which chronicles barriers to food donation worldwide and recommends solutions that reduce those barriers. The Atlas is a critical resource for government leaders committed to reducing hunger and food loss and waste. 

Many GFN member food banks have participated in the program, including The Food Bank Singapore, which collaborated on Atlas research and policy recommendations in 2021. The primary policy recommendation from that work was the implementation of liability protection for food donors and food recovery organizations. And in August 2024, the Singapore Parliament passed the Good Samaritan Food Donation Bill, which provides protection for food donors who meet essential criteria. 

We expect that, in the coming year, more and more food banks will advocate for policy changes that promote food recovery and donation.

Increased Reporting on Methane Reduction 

Up to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from food that goes to waste. And when food decomposes, it creates methane, a greenhouse gas that traps more than 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide over the first 20 years. 

Food recovery and redistribution — which is the expertise of food banks across the world — is the quickest, simplest, and most affordable way to reduce methane emissions. Last year, through a significant investment from the Global Methane Hub, GFN unveiled the Food Recovery to Avoid Methane Emissions, or FRAME, methodology to quantify and track, in real time, the methane emissions prevented via food recovery by food banks in the Network, which spans 63 organizations in 53 countries. 

In 2024, GFN piloted the methodology with food bank members in Ecuador and Mexico, and this year more food banks will join the program, helping demonstrate that food banks are helping mitigate climate change and then sharing that message widely with policymakers and the public and private sectors, using rigorous, layered data to support the claim. 

Innovation 

In the last several years, some food banks are increasingly adopting a “virtual” model of food banking that connects organizations with surplus food directly to those nearby who need it. The model often takes advantage of existing or new technology to make those connections. 

In 2023, the amount of food distributed using virtual food bank models more than doubled, from 5 percent to 11 percent of all food distributed. Among food banking organizations that are using virtual food banking, the model now represents about one-third of all food distributed. Twenty food banks are currently using virtual food banking, up from 14 in 2022. That includes Scholars of Sustenance Thailand, which provided 7.4 million people with 2.1 million kilograms of food in 2023. About 10 percent of the food donations they received came from their innovative Bangkok Food Bank pilot and Cloud Food Bank platform. 

GFN has been evaluating the landscape of virtual food banking with an eye on helping interested members navigate through any challenges they might face.

As we move ahead in 2025, food banks will continue supporting their communities and addressing hunger in new and effective ways.