The Houston Food Bank
America’s largest food bank, reimagining food distribution as a pathway to dignity, policy change, and community resilience
Strategic Goal 4 → The Birth of The Change Lab
Strategic Goal 4: Advocacy for Social Change and Sustainability is more than a policy priority—it is a movement framework. From this goal, The Change Lab was born: a civic engagement and systems-change initiative focused on lifting up neighbor voice, cross-sector collaboration, and community-led solutions to the root causes of hunger and poverty.
The Change Lab reflects HFB’s evolution—from a food bank that feeds the line to a force that works to end the line through empathy, advocacy, and civic imagination.
Who They Are
The Houston Food Bank (HFB) is the largest food bank in the United States by volume, distributing nearly 150 million nutritious meals annually to neighbors across 18 counties in Southeast Texas. But HFB is more than a food distribution center—it’s a hub for innovation, equity, and systemic change.
With over 90% of its food rescued from retail and commercial partners, HFB’s model is rooted in sustainability. Its logistics are world-class, but its strategy is people-first: linking food security with deeper investments in dignity, policy change, and long-term community well-being.
What They Do
Food Rescue + Distribution
Houston Food Bank rescues over 90% of the food it distributes—recovering it from manufacturers, retailers, and distributors before it becomes waste. This highly efficient, sustainability-driven model powers one of the largest food assistance networks in the country.Food for Change
This transformative strategy connects food access with wraparound services like education, workforce development, housing, and healthcare. Through partner organizations, neighbors receive “food scholarships” that reduce grocery costs and increase stability while they work toward long-term goals.Community Engagement
HFB’s Community Engagement team ensures that neighbors are not only recipients of services but co-creators of strategy. Through the Joint Committee, community voice is intentionally integrated into board-level decision-making—elevating lived experience as a source of wisdom, direction, and leadership.Government Affairs & Advocacy
The Government Affairs team works at the local, state, and national levels to advance policies that fight the root causes of hunger. Guided by the Advocacy Committee, this work builds public partnerships, protects SNAP and related programs, and promotes systemic solutions through legislative advocacy and civic collaboration.
Why They Matter
Houston Food Bank is leading the country in redefining what it means to be a food bank. By combining logistics with love, and food with future-building, HFB offers a model for how institutions can serve urgent needs while simultaneously reshaping the systems that created those needs in the first place.
Connection to The Change Lab
The Change Lab lives within and because of HFB. It is the activation arm of Strategic Goal 4—turning insight into impact, conversation into coalition, and community voice into systemic change. Together, we are building a more connected, just, and sustainable future—one meal and one relationship at a time.
