Market by Met Council: Revolutionizing Food Pantries in the Digital Age

In fall 2023, the Food Program of Met Council—America’s largest Jewish charity dedicated to fighting poverty—completed the rollout of the newest version of its digital pantry platform to twelve food pantries in the Met Council food pantry network. The digital initiative coincided with a shift from food pantries’ traditional “pre-packed” model—in which pantry staff and volunteers pre-packed standardized bags of foods and handed them out to long lines of waiting clients (the standard model in the US)—to a “client choice” model, where clients could choose their own food items. Over half of the pantries in Met Council’s network were undergoing the transition to client choice. For most of these pantries, the client choice model was initially implemented as an in-person shopping experience, similar to a small-scale grocery store. For the digital pantries, though, clients would be able to see available items and place orders online, similar to an online grocery shopping experience. Met Council viewed the digital initiative as the next step towards increasing the dignity of the pantry experience and incentivizing healthy food choices. This case discusses the evolution of the digital pantry; specifically, the pros and cons of each pantry model from an operational efficiency perspective, how operational levers can influence consumers’ purchasing decisions, fairness in resource allocation problems, and “push” versus “pull” inventory distribution models.