At Fortifi’s world headquarters in Texas, Fortifi employees regularly volunteer at Montgomery County Food Bank (MCFB) and its Produce Rescue Center, sorting and packaging donations from large food retailers – thousands of pounds of produce that otherwise would wind up in a landfill. The Produce Rescue Center’s 2025 expansion will enable it to process 110,000 additional pounds of food and will add 1 million meals per year to MCFB’s capacity. Fresh produce accounted for 47% of the food in nearly 9 million nutritious meals that MCFB served in 2024, so the Produce Rescue Center is essential to the food bank’s expansion plans.
Our Enriching Communities initiative prioritizes being good citizens in our local communities helps solve food insecurity for families right here at home. Once we found out about MCFB’s expansion plans, we knew we could do more to help out than packing produce. Our company focus on Lean methodology gave us the perfect opportunity to put our business philosophy where our hearts are.
Lean methodology focuses on streamlined efficiency. In all of Fortifi’s companies, we use Lean to emphasize continuous improvement through small, positive changes with big impact. “Kaizen” – part of Lean methodology – stands for improvement, and this process engages everyone in a company to enhance standardized procedures. To help MCFB quadruple its output and ensure that essential food reaches the families who need it most, Fortifi employees completed a volunteer Kaizen at the MCFB Produce Rescue Center from March 18-21, 2025.
First, we showed MCFB how Lead training prioritizes good process flow, helps everyone understand and identify sources of waste, and empowers people to do their best. Together, we worked through a full statement of technical requirements. Then we began to build a detailed map of each step in the food bank’s current methods. The group timed each part of the process and conducted a motion study to find its bottlenecks.
Once the team understood the limits of its current approach, the group mapped out the future. Everyone contributed to a list of advantages and disadvantages of potential processes. With a fresh perspective, MCFB could see how the new process would benefit the Produce Rescue Center. The Kaizen closed with an implementation timeline and full action plan. Now, MCFB can use Lean principles to streamline its operations and optimize food donations.
Fortifi’s support for the Montgomery County Food Bank underscores our deep commitment to operational excellence and community impact. The same disciplined, results-driven methodologies that power our global operations helped unlock new efficiencies that will translate into more meals, less waste and greater service to the community. Our Kaizen for MCFB combined purpose and process to work in meaningful ways beyond the factory floor.