Leah Lizarondo
VFR: Leah, you’re the founder and CEO of Food Rescue Hero, the innovative app technology that powers the Vancouver Food Runners app. Tell us about why you decided to develop this technology – take us back to the beginning!
Leah Lizarondo: It started with observing a problem: every year, grocery stores, restaurants, and other consumer-facing businesses find themselves with millions of tons of surplus food that they can’t sell. Much of it ends up in landfills, including lots of food that is still good and should be donated. The traditional spoke-and-hub model of retail food donation, based on trucks making regular pick-ups and delivering to a central food bank, was missing too much of the irregular, dispersed and highly perishable (and nutritious) surplus food that was available.
Next was the realization that a model that could be adapted to handle this problem already existed: ridesharing and food delivery apps like Uber and DoorDash. While those platforms are based on the work of paid drivers, we made Food Rescue Hero for volunteers. And it’s been a huge success! Our drivers collect on 99% of all available rescues from our donors, and our rescues consist of 87% fresh foods.
VFR: The Food Rescue Hero app is now being used in 16 cities across North America. Since launching in 2016, what has the impact been?
LL: We’ve recovered over 80 million pounds of food, thanks to our now over 27,000 volunteers. That works out to more than 66 million meals delivered to people in need and the equivalent of over 42 million pounds of CO2 emissions mitigated.
VFR: When you first started, were you met with some hesitation by the food industry in Pittsburgh? Have you observed a shift in the food industry over time with respect to donating surplus food?
LL: Actually, there was a real desire for something like this. Before I got involved in food rescue, I worked as a food writer, and I would hear my restaurant-industry friends lamenting all the food they had to throw away every night. Businesses don’t like wasting food, but there wasn’t a practical donation model before.
VFR: Please share some special moments that have stood out to you since launching Food Rescue Hero. What has been the most meaningful part of this journey?
LL: One of the most incredible moments happened right at the start of the pandemic. We were braced for action, knowing that the communities we serve were about to face a wave of food insecurity. But then another wave surged in: suddenly, people were downloading the app to volunteer at the highest rate we’d ever seen. That March, almost 5,000 new users downloaded Food Rescue Hero. Faced with a crisis, people everywhere were looking for a way to help. That really brought home to us that, by creating this tool that enables everyday people to incorporate community service into their lives, we’d tapped into an incredibly powerful force.
VFR: There are now many different food-waste apps available – which is great, as food waste needs to be tackled from multiple angles – but tell us about Food Rescue Hero’s unique role in this space?
LL: We serve as a leader in this field, introducing innovations and enabling partner organizations, like Vancouver Food Runners, to rapidly launch and scale the Food Rescue Hero model wherever they are.
Due to our foundation in local hunger relief, we also have a unique focus and knowledge base on increasing food access. There are apps out there that prevent waste by connecting consumers to discounted food near the end of its shelf life – and those are great. For us, the objective is to bring food within reach for the communities with the greatest access barriers. That’s why we’ve emphasized expanding distribution to non-traditional sites like public housing complexes, senior centers and school bus stops and why we’ve added unique services like home delivery.
VFR: What’s next for Food Rescue Hero? Tell us about your big plans for the future!
LL: One major goal is to scale food rescue in 100 cities by 2030, in support of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. On the way to this goal, we’re aiming to grow the Food Rescue Hero network to over 375,000 volunteers and to rescue over 2.5 billion pounds of food.
More immediately, we’re expanding our Home Delivery program, which we created in spring 2020 to reach those most isolated by the pandemic. We piloted the program in Pittsburgh and Prince William County, where volunteers delivered a combined 271,200 pounds of food directly to over 2,000 homes. Now we’re working to roll out Home Delivery in our other cities.
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