Efficiency Analysis of the European Food Banks: Some Managerial Results

Hundreds of thousands of people in Europe are daily receiving food, thanks to local food banks, run basically by volunteers who collect donations and distribute them to organizations. In this paper, data from a sample of food banks working in 13 European countries are analysed using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), trying to learn about their profiles and find some clues about the efficiency of their operations, comparing them according to variables such as the number of volunteers and permanent staff, the tonnage of food delivered and the number of people served. Significant inefficiencies were found in the sector as a result of high performance of some food banks, thus setting a high level standard of operational efficiency. Some additional results regarding food bank sizes and performance are presented.