MEMBERS BRIEF UPDATE: GVB + St. Vincent dePaul

PRODUCTION WITH PURPOSE

STATUS UPDATE: DOMESTIC HUMANITARIAN AID

RE: ST. VINCENT dePAUL

GVB continues to work with St Vincent de Paul (SVdP) to launch a pilot program in 14 cities across 11 states. To understand the scope of this project, SVdP feeds 30 million people per day in 150 countries through a network of 800,000 members and 1.5 million volunteers. At just one location - Phoenix, Arizona – SVdP feeds 7,000 people per day (2.5 million per year).

The organizational structure is surprisingly very decentralized. Each city where SVdP has an executive director that manages their own budget, food pantry(ies), thrift store, special works projects, and so on.

Because of the decentralized nature of the organization, it was a bottom-up approach to gain traction at the national office – a slow, tedious process. After multiple meetings with executive directors and national board members in multiple states over the course of 6-months, GVB’s lead on this project was able to meet with the CEO, Michael Alcado at a national conference in St. Louis, MO 3-weeks ago.

Current Status: This is the first consumable product that SVdP has explored to put their name on the packaging. GVB has addressed and resolved SVdP’s risk concerns, including 1) legal concern of potential product liability and recall by extending GVB’s General Liability and Recall insurance to their organization, 2) distribution concerns by working with the St. Louis executive director to utilize their 53,000 sq ft main storage facility (4 loading bays), as a central distribution hub for online sales, and 3) raw material sourcing and quality standards, e.g., ISO 9001, SQF certified, fair trade certified. GVB provided a business plan to SVdP that was send to their CEO on Friday, March 28th.

Next Steps: Mr. Alcado is traveling the beginning of April. We are working with his staff to get on his calendar for a conference call the week of April 14th.  The purpose of the meeting will be for SVdP to authorize funding for the design and launch of an ecommerce website, marketing collateral, and packaging design. After funds are allocated for the pilot program and SVdP legal signs off, the pilot program will commence.

NEW LEAD: Feeding America

Feeding America (FA), the largest hunger-relief organization in the United States, provided approximately 5.3 billion meals in 2023.  This translates to an average of about 14.5 million meals per day. More than 50 million people receive charitable food assistance through Feeding America's network each year. 

GVB’s sales rep for St Vincent de Paul introduced us to Chris Ford, a regional COO for Feeding America earlier this month. On March 28th, GVB provided product samples and spoke with Mr. Ford’s meal planner and food purchasing agent. FA has a rating scale for food of green, yellow, and red. Green category foods meet their quality standard for nutritional benefits for the individuals they serve meals to. After sampling and reviewing several GVB products, they stated that our products meet their green standard.

GVB will be working with the FA Iowa and Illinois leadership to take product samples and a business plan with them when they meet with the FA national leadership team in mid-April at the Atlanta, GA national convention.

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GVB 2025