Food Banks as Platforms: Upgrading Pragmatic Legitimacy through Digitalization

Food banks (FBs) are perceived as important nonprofit actors in tackling both hunger and food waste, yet their organizational model remains questioned in multiple ways. While digitalization and platformization offer new organizational possibilities, proper analyses of such initiatives over food waste recovery remain marginal. This research analyzes how the current drive toward digitalization in the food waste orbit can address some of its organizational shortcomings that appear as related to a deficit in its pragmatic legitimacy. To address this gap, the paper i) identifies the current institutional and organizational pressures that FBs face; ii) analyzes how digital transformation can address some of these limitations; iii) introduces a sample of digital platforms that seek to overcome the identified deficits through processes of digitalization; and, finally, iv) presents a set of insights for upgrading the organizational model of FBs through digitalization. Our contribution invites a reappraisal of legitimation strategies that prioritize pragmatic legitimacy concerns, particularly in a context where FBs—whether by design or default—are likely to remain indispensable institutional actors for the foreseeable future.