Food Security can be addressed on three different levels:

Stage 1: Short Term Relief
These actions provide immediate and temporary relief to hunger and food issues. These activities are often completed with little involvement from those experiencing food insecurity.
(Examples: food banks, soup kitchens)

Stage 2: Capacity Building
These actions are often more costly in terms of time and manpower and require commitment from those experiencing food insecurity, but are steps to empowering those experiencing food insecurity. 
(Examples: community kitchens, community gardens, food buying clubs)

Stage 3: Redesign
Redesign actions are broader in scope and require a long-term commitment from representatives of the entire food system, including, in particular, those marginalized by the system. As such, redesign actions are often the most costly, time-consuming and difficult to mobilize communities to pursue. Redesign actions focus on addressing problems thought to be underlying food insecurity. This is often thought of as working “upstream” to create system change. 
(Examples: Food policy, social advocacy to address poverty.)

It is movement along these three stages that measures success, not being at a particular stage.

Food Security Continuum – Laura Kalina, 2001