Corporate responsibility aspects of food banks network in the Czech Republic regarding the need of their economic sustainability

Abstract

Research background: Food banks, in their current form, provide services free of charge, but their activities cannot be conducted without public subsidies. Specifically, these are operational and investment subsidies mainly from the resources of the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic. Thus, the tendency to change the current servicing scheme, mainly from the economic point of view, becomes a growing interest area for food banks and respective stakeholders. Purpose of the article: Purpose of the article is to identify current best practice of food banks sector and to find common aspects of the financial position of food banks in the Czech Republic, using their financial statements and approaches of technical financial analysis in application on the sample of entities. Methods: Authors use general methods of analysis and synthesis of relevant scientific articles and studies with respect to the fact that the problem area of effective and efficient activities in the CEE countries or even Europe is quite rare. There are employed data from accessible financial statements of currently existing 15 food banks in the Czech Republic. Findings & Value added: This article provides an initial outcome of an ongoing specific research project on sustainable service of food banks in the frame of corporate responsible activities within a globalized food manufacturing and food supply chain industry. Authors fill with partial results of this article a gap in the research of the sustainable food bank activities in the CEE countries.

Keywords

• food banks
• corporate responsibility
• food supply chain
• food waste