Toyota newest form of charity: donate its efficiency

Toyota believes the sum of many small, simple cheap improvements can have a very big impact. A bigger impact, than say, simply giving a cash donation.

So instead of sending a check to Metro World Child, a Food Bank for New York City member agency, Toyota donated its efficiency skill set.

Metro World Child distributes emergency food boxes to folks living in the Far Rockaways, a community still struggling more than six months after Superstorm Sandy ravaged the area. Demand has been so high that Metro World Child hasn't always able to deliver enough food boxes to residents in need.

That is, until Toyota stepped in. Toyota spent eight weeks observing and experimenting with every aspect of the meal delivery system, from the size of the boxes used to hold the food and how the warehouse was laid out to the process of packing the truck and distributing the meals.

Toyota tweaked just about everything. The result: Metro World Child delivers meals 18 times faster, from 25 meals an hour to 450 meals an hour. The charity also assembles food boxes in 11 seconds, 12 times faster than before, and has increased the amount of meals transported by almost 50 percent from 864 boxes to 1,260.

The whole process is chronicled in Meals Per Hours, a short, online documentary created by production company Supermarché. Toyota also will donate up to 500,000 meals to Food Bank For New York City based on viewings of the online film.

Photo: Screenshot from film Meals Per Hour

This post was originally published on Smartplanet.com