Ever since Ashok and Meera Vasudevan decided to focus their philanthropic sights on the ambitious goal to end hunger in America by 2030, they’ve set out to see the problem up close.
The Stamford couple, who in 1995 launched Preferred Brands International, the manufacturer and marketer of all- natural specialty foods under the Tasty Bite brand, are engagingly analytical individuals with good instincts for data and market trends. They also have a sophisticated understanding of food distribution networks, having transformed their start-up into a multinational company that was acquired by Mars Food earlier this year. “But you can’t solve a problem you don’t understand in a visceral way,” says Meera, during a visit to Preferred Brands headquarters in Stamford. “And I’m a market researcher, so my first instinct is to go out and meet people to find out what they want and need and don’t have.”
So, Ashok and Meera began visiting local food pantries and volunteering with a Connecticut Food Bank Mobile Pantry they help support. (The mobile pantry program distributes food to neighborhoods with families who are struggling to stretch their food budgets, including some in Stamford.) At the heart of their efforts has been trying to understand why an estimated one in six Americans—and more disturbingly, one in five children—are considered hungry or food insecure. “We are one of the richest, most generous nations in the world,” says Ashok. “These numbers, to us, seem completely unacceptable.”
Through their volunteerism and philanthropy, the Vasudevans have had experiences that convinced them there are deficiencies in the way food is typically offered to those who rely on public and charitable assistance to fill their cupboards. By way of example, Meera tells of handing pantry basics to Stamford residents who hailed from Caribbean islands who wanted more fresh greens. “[Greens] are a staple where they came from and what they would cook with if they could,” she says. “But if there are no fresh greens, they take and eat what we have because they are running low at home.”
Ashok had one of his many “aha” moments studying the shelves of a food pantry stocked with donated boxes of sugary breakfast cereal. “All this cereal—shelves and shelves of it—and yet when I asked the director what was missing, she said, ‘milk,’” he says.
The lack of greens and that missing milk, Ashok says, underscore why too many of Fairfield County’s poor are malnourished and more than 72 percent of people who rely on food banks nationwide are considered obese. “People give to food pantries with good intentions, but they are usually not giving what’s really needed for people to eat healthy and well,” he says. “You are not getting proper nutrition or solving hunger if what’s on the shelves is cereal, pasta or a giant Key lime pie.” And, he adds with a laugh, “Key lime pie may be delicious, but it’s not filling the void.”
The void that is keeping too many people hungry or food insecure is what the Vasudevans hope to fill. In August, after the couple sold Preferred Brands, they accelerated their efforts to bridge the hunger gap near and far. While Ashok continues in his role as Preferred Brands CEO, and Meera as its executive vice president, the proceeds of the corporate sale have allowed them to make a substantial investment in the Meera and Ashok Vasudevan Foundation (MAVF) they created two years ago. By fully endowing MAVF and keeping it deliberately lean with one full-time employee in program coordinator Robert Wells, there is no need for the couple to hold fundraising events, hire a development team to build an endowment or pay operating expenses. “I go to galas now and look at the plate and think, ‘That could be feeding a hungry person,’” says Meera.
“[Fundraisers] serve a very important purpose for nonprofits that need the money to do some important things but we didn’t want ours to be dependent on things like that,” adds Ashok. “We are fortunate that all the money can go to what’s needed.”
This allows the couple, who keep MAVF’s offices at Preferred Brands headquarters, to focus their energies and the foundation’s resources on filling the “three buckets” they have identified as the heart of their expansive, yet targeted efforts to eradicate hunger. These areas of giving include grants to nonprofits committed to “greening” their food pantries with healthier offerings; supporting research; and fostering hunger-solving collaboratives by connecting the experts, stakeholders and agencies best positioned to make a difference (see pg. 90).
So far, efforts range from trying to create a sustainable farming program for two hunger-impacted Native American tribes in Nebraska and expanding the Connecticut Food Bank’s Mobile Pantry program, to working toward making sure every student in the Stamford Public Schools gets a daily, healthy breakfast by fall 2018.
“We considered many ways to be philanthropic,” says Ashok, who notes the couple explored focusing their generosity on the needs of America’s aging Baby Boomers or supporting education projects for girls and women as a pathway out of poverty. (They still have a passion for both causes.) Yet hunger resonated with them for personal and professional reasons. They had seen its devastating consequences up close in their native India. “We did not grow up poor or hungry,” says Meera, who says she and her husband of thirty-five years came from middle class backgrounds. “It came down to food because it is what we understand best,” she says. “We are food marketers, researchers and at the end of the day, entrepreneurs. We came to believe that we had the best chance in succeeding if we focused our energy on ending hunger because we’ve been feeding people for a long time.
“And it may sound a bit Utopian,” she adds, “but I think we can succeed in finding ways to feed a lot more people.”
THE BUCKET LIST
To have the most impact on their goal to end hunger in America by 2030, Ashok and Meera Vasudevan have focused the efforts of the MAVF on filling three philanthropic buckets. They are:
GREENING THE PANTRY
For more than 50 million Americans, food pantries are a lifeline but more than 73 percent of their visitors are obese. MAVF hopes to transform these numbers by supporting plans that promote greener, healthier food pantries, and make them places where visitors can stock up on staples such as eggs, dairy, fruits and vegetables, lean meats and poultry. They also want pantries to reduce the amount of high-sodium canned goods and processed foods they offer. The couple hopes these efforts will also counter the growing number of diabetes cases among pantry clients.
THE HUNGER COLLABORATIVE
The Vasudevans are committed to bringing key stakeholders and best-in-class experts together to end hunger in areas where it’s most acute. Case in point was the couples’ recent trip to visit with members of the Winnebago and Omaha Native American tribes in Nebraska, where they convened a summit focused on developing a sustainable farming system to end chronic hunger. “There is terrible poverty and malnutrition on their reservations,” says Ashok. “But we believe the solutions lie with helping the community to produce their own food from their own land.”
Closer to home, the MAVF has infused funds, along with United Way of Western Connecticut and Walmart, to expand the Connecticut Food Bank’s Mobile Food Pantry program in Danbury, New Milford and Stamford.
Locally, they have actively engaged with city leaders and educators in an ongoing effort to offer every child in Stamford’s public schools a healthy breakfast by 2018. “It’s very exciting to see this kind of thing go from planning to reality,” says Ashok.
RESEARCH GRANTS
The MAVF intends to inspire and support researchers—funding individuals, think tanks, food scientists and academic institutions—who are committed to engaging in rigorous analysis that can help experts better understand and eradicate the vicious cycle of hunger and food insecurity.
BY THE NUMBERS
In a state as wealthy as Connecticut—even on its affluent Gold Coast—hunger can be found in every community. “You would be surprised where it exists and how many people who are employed, but living paycheck to paycheck, struggle to put decent food on the table,” says Meera Vasudevan.
Here are numbers that put things in perspective: According to the Connecticut Food Bank, nearly a half million Connecticut residents, and 127,000 children, regularly struggle with hunger.
Also, Feeding America, a national network of food banks, pantries and soup kitchens, surveyed its members’ clients in 2014 over a twelve-month period. Here is what it found:
73% of clients said they had to choose between buying food or paying utility bills.
68% had to choose between purchasing food or seeking medical care.
42 MILLION The estimated number of Americans who receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Most of them rely on food pantries to supplement their larders by month’s end.
63% had to choose between purchasing food or paying rent.
30% The estimated percentage of ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) low-wage workers in Connecticut who rely on assistance to stretch their food dollars. Those numbers may be even higher in Fairfield County because of its high cost of living.
—sources: Meera and Ashok Vasudevan Foundation and Feeding America