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Title: Estimating True Demand at a Local Hunger Relief Organization
Hunger relief organizations are mostly non-profits that collect food from various sources and redirect them to the people in need. This is to combat the prevalent food insecurity affecting children, the unemployed, students, seniors and so on. Previous research has focused on the demand/donation side of food rescue operations, but the distribution or supply side - especially in reducing the uncertainty associated with food demand - has received significantly lower attention. In this study, we obtained data from a local hunger relief organization, specifically a food pantry to develop estimates of the demand they expect to receive in the future. To do this, we fit the growth of the food pantry client population to a logistic growth model to obtain a good fit. We then obtained data for frequency of visits to develop estimates of the number of visits expected in the future, using time series models. This will be combined with the allocation policy for food distribution to develop estimates of true demand. This study has merit for hunger relief organizations. It will aid decision making relative to food distribution, while also providing data for planning purposes.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1718672
PAR ID:
10182306
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Proceedings of the 2020 IISE Annual Conference
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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