2025 ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit

Erika Thiem joined Feeding America, the nation's largest hunger relief organization, as Chief Supply Chain Officer in 2021. She leads a team that helps enable Feeding America and its network of more than two hundred food banks, regional cooperatives and partner state associations to source and distribute nutritious food for people facing hunger in America. Her team works to innovate, develop strategies, and build strong donor partnerships with food manufacturers, retailers, foodservice operators, and agricultural food producers to meet today's demand for healthy food and work to create a hunger-free tomorrow. She is responsible for purchasing, transportation, technology systems, and data and analytics services in support of network food sourcing and sharing activities. Erika is passionate about the intersection of food rescue and hunger and developing ways to safely and efficiently rescue, sort, process, and repack high-quality, nutritious food for its intended and best use - feeding people.

Erika began her career with General Mills, where she spent 27 years in a broad range of roles within supply chain and quality functions across a diverse set of business units, including serving as the Supply Chain Director for Yoplait yogurt and Häagen-Dazs ice cream.

Her food bank experience began with a role with The Food Group, a food banking organization based in Minnesota. As a board member and volunteer, she helped grow The Food Group’s reach with mobile foodbanks, the integration of Big River Farms, a program supporting local food systems through farmer training and economic mobility, and the expansion of temperature-controlled warehouse storage capacity.

Erika earned her B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Iowa State University and an MBA from the University of Minnesota Carlson School of Management. She is officed in downtown Chicago and calls the Minneapolis, Minnesota area home.