Volunteer Engagement & Attitudes in Food Recovery Operations
Food recovery, the process of recovering edible excess food, represents an opportunity to both reduce food waste and its associated impacts, and reduce food insecurity. Different organizations manage food recovery operations to move food to food donation locations, which rely heavily on volunteers to transport recovered food. The RECIPES Volunteer Engagement & Attitudes in Food Recovery Operations data provides insights on drivers, motivations, and costs incurred by volunteers, as well as evaluates transportation emissions related to food recovery operations.
For inquiries, please contact Hossain Mohiuddin, hossain.mohiuddin@morgan.edu.
Dashboard
This data was obtained through surveys conducted across 25 locations in the U.S. over 5 phases from March 2025-April 2025. The survey collected socio-demographics information, attitudes towards volunteering, environmental concerns, food waste, and barriers to volunteer participation from both active and inactive volunteer groups. The survey received 457 responses total.
Project Summary
- Survey and analysis project conducted studying the role of volunteers in food recovery operations in urban environments in the United States
Research Objectives for Survey and Data Analysis
- Understand personal motivations, costs incurred, and perceptions of food waste as volunteers
- Evaluate the role of transportation in food recovery operations – logistics, distance traveled, vehicle type
Partners
- Food Rescue US (National Organization)
- Manna Food Center (County Organization, Maryland)
Data Collection
- Analyzed historic partner data from August, 2020 through January, 2025
- Survey conducted on of food recovery volunteers (March – April 2025, N=457)
- Volunteers Types (as of January 2025)
- Abstain: Signed up but never completed a run
- Active: Completed at least 1 trip within the last 6 months
- Recently Inactive: Last trip was completed over 6 months ago, less than 1 year ago
- Inactive: Completed 1 or more trips over a year ago
- To identify volunteer attitudes, we structured a portion of the survey questions focused on behavioral analysis using an integrated choice, latent variable (ICLV) model within the survey
Definitions
- Trip Chain- When driving a vehicle, completing multiple tasks (stops) along your day before returning where you started.