Food Rescue US is the simple solution to ending local hunger. We are a technology-based, volunteer-driven, direct-transfer platform that is simple, sustainable, and replicable. Volunteer food rescuers across the country deliver fresh food from businesses that have too much to people who have too little. Food Rescue US is the only organization in food rescue operating with our unique model.
Mission
Food Rescue US is committed to ending American food insecurity by directly transferring fresh, usable food that would have otherwise been thrown away from restaurants, grocers and other food industry sources to food-insecure families throughout the U.S.
The Food Rescue US Difference
The unique use of our award-winning proprietary mobile technology increases access to fresh produce and perishables that are not available through the traditional warehouse models of food delivery that have long dominated the hunger and food-insecurity sectors. The traditional model requires warehousing and shelf time, not allowing for the delivery of fresh perishables. Our food is always transferred directly from point A to point B and nowhere in between, eliminating costly warehousing and staffing necessary in traditional models. Those same models become even less cost effective based on our model’s 100% use of volunteers to transfer recovered food, since we have also eliminated the staffing, transportation, fuel and insurance costs.
Values
We believe in the power of community to make change. People working together toward the common goal of ending food insecurity is what drives our mission.
As an innovative and technologically groundbreaking organization, creativity is at the root of our being. From our strategies to our storytelling, we want to push the envelope of creativity and beauty.
The elegance of the Food Rescue US model is in its simplicity. We strive to maintain this simplicity in every facet of our organization.
Gratitude is our currency, and we believe that every food donor, food rescuer, receiving agency and partner organization deserves a handsome salary. Thank you all.
Every food run, every meeting, every story is fueled by people with a passion to end food insecurity in the United States. Passion sustains this movement.
Founder’s Story
A few years ago I was thinking about how we give. People from all walks of life give regularly to their favorite causes, but what about companies, do they give?
I started a web-based software company several years ago called WhenToManage; in a nutshell, we give restaurant operators a simple way to manage their labor, inventory and reporting. We are a small and quickly growing company and I thought we should start giving something; every little bit helps, right?
What to give? Well, we could give money, that’s the obvious choice. What about our time? What about our talent? What are we good at? It just so happens that our company is very good at taking complicated tasks and building web applications to make them much simpler. Could we use that talent for some good cause?
Since restaurants are what we know, I started there. I know restaurants throw away a lot of food. A lot. Maybe we could save that food from getting wasted and get it to people that are hungry. So I started to dig deeper. Food insecurity is a real problem in parts of the U.S. Too many families don’t have a good idea where their next meal is coming from. So we definitely have people in need of that resource; what about the other side?
Would restaurants be willing to do it? After the earthquake in Haiti, fundraising for disaster relief seemed to be successful because all someone had to do was type five numbers into their cell phone and they donated. It was simple. If we could make it that simple for restaurants to participate, how could they say “no”?
I pitched the idea to my team. We started calling some restaurant operators and some support agencies and there was definitely food to save and definitely people that needed it. Now the only question left was “can we make the process simple enough for everyone?”
I firmly believe that we can.
Sincerely,
Jeff Schacher