As of February 7, 2023, the Food Rescue Hero™ Network has collectively rescued and redistributed over 5 million pounds of food. The 15 network partners in the U.S. and Canada oversee operations for a network of 39,000+ volunteers – food rescue heroes – who graciously donate their time to pick up surplus food from local retailers, and transport it to nonprofits serving community members experiencing food insecurity.
Last year, in 2022, the Food Rescue Hero Network recovered 52 million pounds of food, averaging 4.3 million pounds per month. The network is starting off the new year on the right foot, already seeing an increase in poundage recovered monthly.
In 2023, Food Rescue Hero intends to continue their growth of impact through expanding existing network partners’ footprints into more counties, and onboarding new food rescue organizations to start using the Food Rescue Hero technology in order to streamline and grow their operations.
Optimizing food recovery operations is vital for a number of reasons. As more legislation is introduced in states like California and New York, requiring food retailers to donate a portion of their edible surplus, advanced data tracking and reporting is necessary to reflect and meet those requirements. Further, when recovery operations are streamlined, the resulting growth opens up opportunity for increased food access and nutrition security – especially in a time of inflated grocery prices coupled with low wages.
The more food that is saved from going to waste and instead redistributed, the fewer of our community members will struggle to gain access to the nutrition they need. As a result, our communities will flourish as a whole.
Join Food Rescue Hero – making greater impact, together.
About Food Rescue Hero™: Purposefully designed to automate the time consuming and variable coordination of food recovery, Food Rescue Hero enables scalable impact on food waste, food insecurity and climate change. Since 87% of the food for pick up is fresh, timely delivery is essential. In the United States, as much as 40 percent of the food produced is wasted while one in five people goes hungry. Food waste is also one of the leading causes of greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2016, the Food Rescue Hero Network, made up of 15 partners in the US and Canada, and a growing community of 39K volunteer drivers, has diverted 132 million pounds (the equivalent of 110.7 million meals) of perfectly good food from the landfill and mitigated 72 million pounds of CO2 emissions. Piloted in Pittsburgh, Food Rescue Hero facilitates partner growth and multi-county expansion, aiming to scale food recovery in 100 cities by 2030 and measurably support the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2, 12 and 13.
