Research and Publications
Reports, presentations, and projects completed by our researchers.Featured Research Briefs
Technology and Food Pantry Management
Attracting and Retaining Volunteers
Language and Cultural Differences
Food Pantry Practices during the Covid-19 Pandemic
Publications
Mapping Networks, Resources, Gaps and Vulnerabilities in Middlesex County’s Emergency Food System During an Emergency
The objective of this report was to better understand how the emergency food system works during a crisis. The research sought to identify networks and points of strength as well as areas to be strengthened to improve resiliency during an emergency.
Middlesex County Food Dating Label Education Project
This report analyzes the ways in which individual pantries throughout Middlesex County interact with food product date labels, food waste, staff and client education, and the impact that COVID-19 has had on those topics.
Middlesex County Emergency Food Organizations and Non-Food Services During the Covid Pandemic
This report offers some insight about the non-food challenges that pantries confronted during the pandemic, how pantry staff navigated the demand for these services during the pandemic through July of 2021, and it provides some idea about the type of information that might be useful to pantries moving forward.
Emergency Food System Challenges: Food Pantry Practices During the COVID-19 Pandemic
This brief examines how a set of food pantries in Middlesex County, NJ experienced the pandemic from March to October/November 2020.
Middlesex County Emergency Food System Covid-19 Pandemic Report
This report examines how emergency food providers in Middlesex County, New Jersey, changed their practices during the pandemic. The report looks at how food pantries navigated challenges related to...
Understanding the Impact of COVID-19 on People, Pantries and Practices in the Emergency Food System
The COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on the emergency food system, challenging a system that was already operating with few resources. Food pantries developed strategies to meet surging...
Emergency Food System Challenges: Language and Cultural Differences
Pantries have tried a number of different strategies to increase institutional cultural competency and mediate language and cultural differences.
Emergency Food System Challenges: Attracting & Retaining Volunteers
The 2019-2020 Ralph W. Voorhees Fellows examined the role of volunteers in pantry management.
Emergency Food System Challenges: Technology and Food Pantry Management
Food banks and pantries are increasingly turning to technology such as GPS tracking, logistics software, and database management to manage food inventories, client records, and governmental reporting.
Innovative Practices in Emergency Food Delivery
Ralph W. Voorhees Public Service Fellows Hina Arshad, Nashia Basit, Cassie Bolinger, Aiza Nageeb, Julien Rosenbloom with Evan Iacobucci, Planning and Public Policy Doctoral Program. During the Fall...
Food Insecurity in Middlesex County
Riley Link, Curtis McDaniel, Daniel Rodriguez, and Sabeen Rokerya, 2018 Ralph W. Voorhees Public Service Fellows, partnered with the Middlesex County Food Organization and Outreach Distribution...
Healthy Food as Medicine? A Closer Look at Fruit and Vegetable Prescription (FVRx) Programs Across the Country.
Wholesome Wave created Fruit and Vegetable Prescription Programs (FVRx) in 2010 to help patients at risk of diet-related illness that can’t afford or access fresh/healthy food. With FVRx, participating clinics issue prescribe vouchers to food-insecure patients, which they will then redeem at local food retailers such as grocery stores and farmers markets.
New Brunswick Community Food Assessment
The New Brunswick Community Food Alliance (NBCFA) launched in 2012 to improve community food security with a vision that “All City residents have access to adequate amounts of nutritious, safe,...
Taking Food Access on the Road
Food insecurity, food accessibility, and food deserts have generated national concern as social justice issues. To combat these injustices, groups from across North America have created mobile food...
Community Food Incubation and the Potential to Create Small Food Businesses in New Brunswick
New Brunswick is home to many current and future food business entrepreneurs. Some are home cooks who would like to start a food business. Others would like to expand their current businesses by...