A free vending machine stocked full of groceries including fresh produce and eggs has been launched in the Bronx, New York City, the first of its kind made to serve the general public.
The NGO Change Food For Good set up the vending machine in October in the Kips Bay Boys and Girls Club youth center in Castle Hill.
Newsweek contacted Change Food For Good via email on Tuesday outside of regular working hours.
Why It Matters
The initiative takes a novel approach to addressing food insecurity amid rising grocery prices, and helps lower-income households access healthy, nutritious foods that might otherwise be out of reach.
What To Know
The vending machine was set up by the New York-based nonprofit as part of its Good Food For All program, which aims to increase the accessibility of healthy food for individuals in need.
“One of the main goals of the Good Food For All program is to ensure that individuals, even if they’re struggling, still have their dignity and agency preserved in their food choices,” Change Food For Good’s founder Samia Lemfadli said in an Instagram video.
The machine will be restocked once or twice a month, and includes a QR code users can use to make requests for specific items, the NGO said.
The items are manually packed in order to minimize breakage and for optimum convenience, for example fresh garlic is vacuum-packed to prevent odor.
Change Food For Good said that it mostly purchases items in bulk from places like wholesale distributor Restaurant Depot or the food cooperative Brooklyn Supported Agriculture.
They accept monetary donations to support their work.
The NGO said in a comment on TikTok that they had opted to set up a vending machine rather than an ordinary fridge to ensure items were not tampered with, and to keep track of which items are most in demand.
There are currently no limits on how many items individuals can take.
Lemfadli said in a video that the organization was considering introducing a scan card system to cap the number of items per person in the future, but said that she felt this might enter “murky territory” of dictating what others can eat.
Change Food For Good’s primary mission is to make sustainable agricultural technology more accessible to areas affected by food insecurity, and it runs a range of programs including free job training programs for young adults and community farm development.
What People Are Saying
One vending machine user told News12: “I think it’s awesome. Because we need it right now, times are hard.”
Change Food For Good wrote on Instagram: “With rising grocery prices affecting everyone, we truly hope that this machine can help families that need it but also, that changemakers, community organizations, and activists can take this model for free food distribution and run with it.”
What Happens Next
The NGO said it hopes its vending machine would serve as inspiration to other organizations to set up similar machines in hospitals, schools and other places.