The Food Industry’s Moment to Lead: Doing Well by Doing Good

Kimberly Smith, CEO, Copia PBC May, 2025

In May 2025, Congress passed the largest cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in U.S. history. Nearly $300 billion – a staggering 26% reduction – will be stripped from a program that over 40 million Americans rely on for food access.

This is not a marginal change. It is a seismic one, and it directly impacts the very workers who power the hospitality industry.

The irony is that most families relying on SNAP are not unemployed. They’re working – many are in restaurants, hotels, and service businesses. When foundational networks shrink, it’s not just the community that suffers—it’s your staff, your teams, your neighbors.

We Don’t Have a Food Shortage. We Have a Distribution Problem.

According to ReFED, over $200 billion of food is wasted annually from overproduction alone. Perfectly edible, safe food – never sold, never served, never eaten.

At the same time, more than 44 million people in the U.S. face food insecurity – including 1 in 5 children.

Hunger isn’t political.
It is solvable.

If we simply redistributed unsold, uneaten food as part of our restaurant and hospitality operations, we wouldn’t need to produce more food to solve this problem. The foundation would already be laid. We’d reduce the environmental impact of growing and transporting excess food. We’d mitigate the financial volatility tied to federal support programs. And most importantly, we’d ensure that fewer families go without.

But for this to work, it needs to be operationally easy – not a favor, but a function.

Copia was built for this exact moment. We connect businesses – restaurants, hotels, healthcare campuses – with local nonprofits to redistribute surplus food safely, efficiently, and legally. And we do it in a way that’s frictionless for staff and valuable for the bottom line.

Because here’s what most operators don’t realize: 

You get rewarded for doing the right thing.

• Tax deductions under IRS §170(e)(3)
• Lower waste-hauling costs
• Quantifiable ESG wins
• And the pride of knowing your food didn’t go to waste – it went to someone in your neighborhood where you employ and operate in

It doesn’t matter whether it’s a few trays of prepared meals from a hotel kitchen or pallets of food from a distribution center. What matters is finding that food the right home so it can be used for its highest purpose: feeding people.

Copia’s platform makes donations operationally efficient, reliable, and a triple bottom line win for businesses.

To every restaurant and hotel group: This is your moment to lead. You got into this business to feed people. Now is the time to extend your table.

The need has never been higher.
The food has never been more abundant.
The solution has never been easier.

Copia is ready. Are you?