Together, we rescued 38+ million pounds of food, providing over 32 million meals to the food insecure. 

We are grateful for the commitment and dedication of our food donors, volunteer food rescuers, social service agencies, site directors and their teams, and financial donors. Together, we are making a difference.

View our 2023 Impact Report HERE

The post FOOD RESCUE US 2023 IMPACT REPORT appeared first on Food Rescue US.

Download this Op-Ed As a Template

The Challenge

According to ReFED, a nonprofit dedicated to reducing food waste in the United States, a staggering 38 percent of food goes uneaten in our country.  That adds up to 180 billion pounds and $408 billion wasted annually. Simultaneously, over 40 million Americans struggle with food insecurity, unsure of where their next meal will come from. These statistics paint a stark picture of a broken system in dire need of intervention.

Food Recovery As Part of Solution

Enter food recovery—an often-overlooked mechanism with the power to address both food waste and food insecurity simultaneously. Food recovery involves rescuing surplus food that would otherwise be discarded and redistributing it to those in need. It’s a simple concept with profound implications.

At the forefront of this movement is Food Rescue US, a nonprofit organization dedicated to reducing food insecurity through food rescue. Our organization recognizes that hunger is not a scarcity issue but a distribution problem, and we are tackling it head-on by mobilizing volunteers to rescue surplus food and deliver it to local agencies serving those in need.  In 2023, Food Rescue US rescued 38 Million pounds of food across 20 states and the District of Columbia, the equivalent of more than 31 million meals for those in need.

Accessibility and Scalability

What sets food recovery apart is its accessibility and scalability. Volunteering as a food rescuer requires nothing more than time and compassion. Individuals can sign up to be a part of the solution, rescuing food from grocery stores, restaurants, bakeries, or catered events and delivering it to food pantries, soup kitchens, or shelters. The impact of volunteers ripples through communities, providing nourishment and hope to those who need it most.

The benefits of food recovery extend far beyond addressing immediate hunger. When food goes to landfill, it releases methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, as it degrades.  Diverting food from landfills reduces greenhouse gas emissions and alleviates the strain on our environment. It also has economic advantages, saving businesses money on disposal costs and generating tax deductions for food donations.

Food recovery also fosters a sense of community and solidarity, bringing together individuals from diverse backgrounds, united by a common goal: to ensure no one goes hungry in their community. In a time marked by division and discord, feeding the food insecure transcends barriers and reminds us of our shared humanity.

Underutilized Tool

Despite its immense potential, food recovery as a solution remains underutilized on a national scale. To fully harness food recovery’s power, we must elevate it in our collective consciousness and integrate it into our social and economic systems. This requires collaboration among policymakers, businesses, nonprofits, and individuals (volunteers) to create supportive frameworks and incentives for food recovery initiatives.

We can all play a role in promoting food recovery. Whether we volunteer our time, support food recovery organizations like Food Rescue US, or advocate for policy changes, each of us has the power to make a difference.

The post Food Recovery: A Powerful Solution Combating Food Waste and Food Insecurity appeared first on Food Rescue US.

Meet the 2024 Honorees

Leadership Award Recipient Melissa Spiesman

Melissa recently retired from her decade-plus tenure as Chief Operating Officer at Food Rescue US. Her vision, leadership, and passion helped our organization grow from a local nonprofit to a national leader in food rescue.

Looking to the future, Melissa expressed confidence in the path ahead for Food Rescue US. “The journey doesn’t end with me. There’s a robust team in place, and the need for our work continues to grow. I’m excited to see how Food Rescue US will continue to innovate and expand its impact.“

Visionary Award Recipient Michel Nischan

Michel Nischan is a four-time James Beard Award-winning chef with over 35 years of leadership advocating for a more healthful, sustainable food system. He is founder and president of Wholesome Crave, a food company selling responsibly sourced, plant-based soups. A portion of the sales from Wholesome Crave products benefit Wholesome Wave, the non-profit food equity organization for which Michel serves as Co-Founder and Executive Chairman.

About the Event

The event will feature a seated dinner with fine wine, cocktails, hors d’oeuvres, and a menu designed by Michel Nischan in collaboration with Abigail Kirsch. 

Exclusive silent and live auction items will be available to bid on, including luxury items and experiences.

The post CELEBRATE FOOD RESCUE US 2024 appeared first on Food Rescue US.

What is a Share Table?

The concept is simple. The share tables are placed within the school cafeterias, where students can place unopened, non-perishable food items they don’t plan to eat. This could be anything from snacks and cereal boxes to whole fruits. It’s a win-win: students who need a little extra can take what they need, ensuring that no child goes hungry and that good food doesn’t go to waste. At the end of each week, Food Rescue US – South Florida volunteers collect any remaining food from the Share Tables and deliver it to local social service agencies, extending the circle of sharing and support to the wider community.

Lessons in Compassion and Sustainability

The Share Table is more than a place to share food; it’s a lesson in compassion and sustainability. Through flyers sent home and a student-created YouTube explainer video, Food Rescue US – South Florida is engaging the community in a dialogue about the impact of food waste on the climate and the importance of helping those in need. The enthusiasm from students has been inspiring, showing that even the youngest among us can lead the way in making a difference.

Site Director Ellen Bowen expects to collect around 30 pounds of food from each school twice a week, totaling 250 pounds of high-quality food saved from landfills every week. As the initiative grows, she expects to see these numbers increase, demonstrating the real impact of simple acts of sharing and conservation to the participating students.

We invite you to join in this journey. Whether you’re a parent, student, or community member, your support can help expand this initiative and create a more sustainable, caring community. For more information on how you can get involved, visit the Food Rescue US – South Florida website or follow them on Instagram @foodrescueus.soflo.

The post New “Share Table” Initiative Launches in Miami Schools appeared first on Food Rescue US.

Share your story:

We are inviting our volunteers to share their inspirations, insights, and experiences through short videos. Your stories are powerful, and by sharing them, you can inspire others and spread the word about how we’re filling plates instead of landfills. Plus, it’s a fun way to connect with the wider Food Rescue US community!

How can you participate?

1. Choose your prompt: There are five prompts listed below. Pick one that resonates with you the most.
2. Film your story: Use your phone to record a brief video (1-2 minutes) answering your chosen prompt. Nothing fancy- just speak from the heart! Be sure to include your name and the city where you volunteer.
3. Share your video: There are 2 ways to share:
   – Instagram: Post your video using the hashtag #WhatsYourWhy. Be sure to tag our @FoodRescueUS handle so we can share your stories!
   – Google Drive: Upload your video directly to our shared Google Drive folder. We’ll feature these videos on our social platforms. This is a great option if you don’t have a lot of time or experience with creating videos.

Video Prompts to Choose From:

1. What inspires you to volunteer with Food Rescue US?
2. What are some of the impacts of this work that you’ve seen?
3. What do you wish people understood about food waste?
4. Have you learned anything that surprised you while doing this work?
5. What would you tell someone who is interested in getting involved but doesn’t know where to start?

Need Help?

If you have any questions or need assistance with recording or uploading your video, please reach out to Jenna at jenna@foodrescue.us.

We are excited to receive your submissions and can’t wait to hear your stories! Thank you for being an essential part of our mission to fill plates, not landfills!

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This summer, Oliver Kaufman of Stamford, Connecticut, set a new record for Food Rescue US volunteers – 1,000 rescues! We reached out to Oliver to hear more about his years of rescuing food and the insights he has gleaned in the process.

Q: Congratulations on 1,000 rescues! How long have you been a volunteer with Food Rescue US?

A: Thank you. I started volunteering with Food Rescue US about 5 years ago. I rescue food from quite a few different places around Stamford, and have regular pickups most days of the week. I’m not doing it for the record, but it was fun when they told me I’d hit one thousand rescues.

Q: What motivates you to do this work?

A: I’ve always been one to volunteer, and when my kids were little, I did it to show them how we can impact our community. It’s much easier to write a check, but I’d rather be there and help with my own hands, so to speak. It gives me a smile when I drop off the food at the soup kitchen or the homeless shelter or some other agency. I get big thank yous, especially since we’re giving them such nutritious food like fruits, vegetables, and prepared meals. It’s not another box of pasta or can of beans.

Q: How do you fit so many rescues into your schedule?

A: I work in sales so during the week I have a flexible schedule. Since my kids are in their mid 20’s, my weekends are relatively free. If I didn’t do all my pickups, I’d just be sitting on the couch eating bonbons. I love the flexibility you get with Food Rescue US. You’re not committing several hours at a time, which you are with most other volunteer opportunities. You do it when you can. If you have extra time, you open the app, see that there’s something tomorrow at 10:00 AM or 3:00 PM and you pick it up if you’ve got a spare 32 minutes or so.

Q: What’s the most interesting or unusual rescue that you’ve done?

A: I was doing the rescue at Whole Foods one day and I asked what happened to all the prepared foods from the salad bar and deli. So they pointed me to the Prepared Foods Manager and I told him what Food Rescue US does. And I’ll never forget when he said to me, “Oliver, I’ve been looking for you for years. I hate how much food I throw out every day.” And now we get prepared foods from this Whole Foods seven days a week. I started keeping count of how many rotisserie chickens and sushi I’d pick up. My record is 61 chickens and 71 sushi rolls. My goal though is truffles, wagyu beef and caviar. You have to have goals!

What do you wish other people knew about food rescue?

A: I think people have no idea how much food waste there is. They also don’t realize that roughly one in six kids are food insecure. So I say to people, if your kid was in class, look at two kids to the right, two kids to the left. One of those is probably food insecure. When kids are hungry, they can’t concentrate in class. And to me that’s the mic drop.

We extend our heartfelt thanks and congratulations to Oliver on his 1,000 (and counting) rescues! Are you or another volunteer you know close to hitting a rescue milestone? Did you just complete your first rescue? Your 15th or 100th? Share a photo on Instagram and tag @foodrescueus so we can celebrate you, too!

The post Volunteer Sets Record With 1,000 Rescues appeared first on Food Rescue US.

Gina Smith, the Manager of Community Health Improvement for Bridgeport Hospital, is an active participant in the Health Improvement Alliance (HIA) and is thrilled to collaborate with Food Rescue US. 

HIA was formed in 2003 to address the health needs of the Greater Bridgeport community, including the seven towns of Bridgeport, Easton, Fairfield, Milford, Monroe, Stratford, and Trumbull. HIA is a voluntary group comprised of multiple subcommittees that meet several times per month to collaborate, talk, share stories and lessons, learn from one another, and advance healthy living options for our community. Bridgeport Hospital and St. Vincent’s Medical Center are founding members and also co-chair the work of HIA.

HIA is involved in community health in a number of ways, but below is a program that Gina highlighted that is extremely relevant for our Food as Medicine theme:

Did you know there are NINE farmers markets in Bridgeport Farmers Market Collaborative?

• All nine farmers markets accept and double SNAP, as well as Farmers Market Nutrition Program, Senior, and WIC checks. They even have their own community currency called Bridgeport Bucks (Bridgeport Bucks are $5 vouchers anyone can access at thesemarkets to offset the cost of their groceries.)
• The markets are spread out through the week and across the city to make them as accessible as possible.
  • Here is a link to the master schedule and map.
  • Sign up here for their newsletter.
• The markets often host food demonstrations by local experts on how to cook and eat healthy (led by local chefs, dieticians, etc.)
• The markets not only provide food but educate about local produce, when it is available, how to cook it, recipes, etc.

Takina Pollock Shafer, Director of the Bridgeport Farmers Market Collaborative, commented, “With inflation and the cost of groceries always rising, BFMC exists to help combat nutrition insecurity in our communities by providing people direct access to fresh, CT Grown produce at Bridgeport’s farmers markets.” 

So, come out and support these amazing causes. Come enjoy one (or more) of the nine  Bridgeport Farmers’ Markets, enjoy the abundance of fresh local produce, and help these markets thrive! 

Thanks,

Michelle Colman

Food Rescue US – Fairfield County Food as Medicine Liaison

The post FOOD AS MEDICINE: LOCAL BITES – JULY 2023 appeared first on Food Rescue US.

This month we are highlighting the work of two young leaders in our Food Rescue US network – both of whom were still in high school when they got their start. Levi is a rising college junior and the Executive Director of JEE Foods, a Food Rescue US licensee. Natalia just graduated high school this month and is the Co-Site Director of Food Rescue US Virginia Beach. We sat down with them recently to ask about their experience.

What first sparked your interest in food rescue work?

Levi: I first became involved in food rescue back in 2018 for a school project. Our school group was working with the United Nations on a global partnership with a school in South Korea where our task was to come up with solutions to end poverty and hunger. While looking at these global issues, we noticed similarities in our own community. The lack of jobs, unstable economy, and a lack of education all bubble into it. But it all starts with food. To break the cycle of poverty through education and job training, people first need a stable source of food.

Natalia: My story starts with a school project, too. In my freshman year, I had to find an issue in my community that I wanted to address. One thing that I noticed is when I would go from my field hockey practice to the grocery store to get a coffee it was always seven or eight at night. And that’s the time they were throwing away all their deli food, all their pizza, all their salads, all their sandwiches, all in the trash. And just was really astounding to see. I always knew not to waste food at home, but I just didn’t realize the scale of it in grocery stores and restaurants. So that became my issue. As I was researching food waste and what people are doing to address it, I came across Food Rescue US. There was no site near me, so we worked with the national team to start one.

How did you balance such a big responsibility with school?

Levi: When we first started, we were using a spreadsheet to organize rescues. As you can imagine, that was difficult to manage during the school day. We needed a better solution, and that was the Food Rescue US app. We could be hands-off during the school day and volunteers would still know what they needed to do. It took a lot of the pressure off. At this point, we’re managing roughly 70 to 80 food rescues per week through the software, and everyone in our organization is either in high school or early college.

Natalia: It never felt like too much to handle in the early days. I was just fired up about getting Food Rescue US Virginia Beach started! Everyone is really helpful in the Food Rescue network and supportive of me as a student. The schedule is flexible, and of course I have my mom co-directing with me. We split up tasks and cover for each other if she has work or I have school. It’s the team effort that’s made it possible.

What does your operation look like now?

Levi: We serve over a hundred nonprofits today. We’re based in southwest Ohio, but we reach into the entire other side of Ohio, across Indiana and into the Appalachia Mountains in Kentucky. We started out very, very small in the rural community, and it’s just kept growing. At this point, we have probably about 70 volunteers that are doing the recurring rescues for us on that day-to-day basis. We serve drug recovery centers, veteran centers, senior centers, food pantries, food banks. We do a lot of pop-up markets as well. So we kind of serve a little bit of everybody.

Natalia: Right now, we have about 30 food donors and 190 volunteers signed up to deliver that food to around 45 recipient organizations. We’re continuing to expand here with new partnerships in the works. I’m working with the Crop Foundation that is connecting us with a local restaurant to be a hub for large food donation storage. The chef and his volunteer students will take raw produce donations and turn them into meals for distribution. We are also in touch with Support and Feed that is starting up in this area. That will be another source of prepared meals for us to distribute to receiving agencies. It’s an exciting time.

What impact are you seeing from your work?

Levi: From a pure numbers standpoint, we’ve rescued and distributed just about 7 million pounds of food at this point. But numbers don’t even begin to tell the story. I think that’s so special about this work is it’s not transactional, but very personal. We are out there talking with people and learning their stories. It’s so rewarding to understand the need and then connect the dots to get that food there. 

Natalia: I agree that it’s about so much more than the numbers. When we drop off food at our receiving agencies, we get to talk with people and hear so many stories. We hear all these stories about the people we are helping and the impact we are making. You get to see firsthand that food is what connects us all.

How does the food rescue mission resonate with your generation?

Levi: Our organization is appealing because we aren’t just sitting on the sidelines of a problem. We’re giving students real opportunities and responsibilities to make changes, and then we rally around them to help figure it out. I think food rescue is so great for that because of the community that goes around it. The agencies are supporting you, the food donors are saying, thank you so much for coming, and then we’re here to make sure that our volunteers have the platform, the tools they need to succeed. 

Natalia: We started during the pandemic, so volunteering with Food Rescue US to hand out USDA food boxes was a safe way for a lot of my friends and classmates to see each other and feel like they were doing something. And from there, they just kept coming back. People have different reasons. For some it’s about social justice and food insecurity. For others it’s about the environmental impact of food waste. It’s also just an easy, cool way to volunteer. Just go on your phone and click a rescue kind of like you’re doing DoorDash. It’s just so easy and it’s such an impactful way to do something in your community.

What advice do you have for other new site directors? 

Levi: I think student site directors have this aspiration to become the biggest site right away, to have the most donors and be a national name. But my advice is you have to start local, recognize the community piece of it and then build those connections and opportunities around it. Maybe don’t secure a large contract with your grocery store right away. Start with the local farm stands. Start with somebody local where you can learn on a day-to-day basis with them. Get that first rescuer or that first adopter that picks up every week from you. And then learn.

Natalia: My mom and I had a lot of success with cold calling – just showing up to businesses to talk about donating their excess food. So don’t be afraid to show up but show up with something in hand like the Emerson Act or your state’s rules around food donation. The first question is always “will I be protected?” And it’s easier to have something in print to point to that says yes, you can do this safely. 

Looking Ahead

This fall, Levi will enter his junior year at Miami University and continue to serve as the Executive Director of JEE Foods. This year he plans to launch a rescued food pantry on campus and take a student-renovated mobile market bus to surrounding rural communities that lack access to fresh foods. Natalia will begin her freshman year at Harvard and plans to keep helping her mom with FRUS Virginia Beach while also branching out in Boston. She aims to work with the Harvard Food Policy Law clinic and maybe even start a food rescue program on campus.  We are fortunate to have these exceptional young leaders within our ranks and look forward to seeing what they do next. 

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