Means Database

Community Meal Program - We continued our Community Meal Program in cities, where we paid local small businesses (restaurants and caterers with 4 or fewer total locations) $10 per meal to make catering orders specifically to be donated to pre-selected nearby emergency food providers. This program supports both restaurants and nonprofits alike. In 2022, to realign with our food recovery mission, MEANS decreased the number of meals we purchased. We received additional funding for this program in June 2022 from the Grubhub Community Fund to continue the program through the rest of the year. In 2022, we purchased 5,200 meals from 23 restaurants, which were redistributed to those in need through partnership with 100 nonprofit and mutual aid organizations. We have also been happy to support our nonprofit partners with food donations in addition to purchased meals. Core Food Recovery Program - Our core program at MEANS Database is our food recovery program, where food businesses with extra food can post a donation, and our system automatically emails and texts nearby emergency food providers. Our goal is to connect excess and need in communities across the country. Our outreach team works to grow our network of donors and recipients, and our tech team works to maintain our website, expand its functionality, and improve accessibility features to best serve our users. This program is completely free for both food donors and recipient organizations to use. In 2022, MEANS Database recovered 3,116,485 pounds of food. This food ranged from extra catered meals in St Louis to bulk loads of yogurt in Ohio. MEANS Database does not purchase recovered food but funding is used to provide transportation of the product. Florida - In October 2022, we hired a Florida Program Manager, Emily Grant. She is based in the state, and from her previous position working on the University of Floridas Family Nutrition Program, she has hundreds of contacts throughout Florida. This year, weve had the opportunity to collaborate with amazing partners such as Orange County Public Schools, United Against Poverty, and so many more. Through our outreach program, we moved over 473,644 pounds of food in the state, 9x the amount moved last year! We are offering transportation for donations across the state, and are excited to continue to add more drivers to our network. Weve made great strides towards establishing food recovery efforts in Florida and cannot wait to see how we will further expand our work in 2023! Rhode Island - In October, we received a second EPA Healthy Communities Grant in partnership with Rescuing Leftover Cuisine (RLC) and the Rhode Island Department of Health (RIDOH) to expand food recovery across the state of Rhode Island and Bristol County, MA. In our first year of the grant cycle, we noticed a need for more cross-state food donations, especially along the border. This grant has helped us build upon our food recovery work across the state, expanding upon the 2017 Rhode to End Hunger initiative with RIDOH. We also joined the Rhode Island Food Policy Council in 2021, which has allowed us to partner with dozens of new organizations and projects across the state. We have reached new partners in 2022, and are looking forward to continuing our food recovery work in RI and MA! Bulk donations- In Q3, we entered the world of bulk donations. We worked with our now-bulk procurement manager to reroute truckloads of extra food from warehouses to nonprofits across the country. We used our newfound connections to donate tens of thousands of pounds of food, such as meat, yogurt, milk, and produce, to organizations fighting food insecurity across the country. Since moving semi-truck loads of produce is not always a feasible option for our partners, we spent funds towards transportation. By working with a Third-Party Logistics (3PL) company, we paid for drivers to pick up these bulk donations and deliver them to food banks and community organizations across the country. Iowa Gardening for Good - We were fortunate to partner with Iowa Gardening for Good, an incredible farm in Iowa that grows fresh produce specifically for donation! For this partnership, we helped the Gardening for Good team cover transportation costs accrued by distributing their produce to food pantries and food banks across central Iowa. We even were able to move thousands of pounds of watermelons to food pantries and community gardens across Minneapolis. Through this partnership, we were able to assist with the donation of fresh produce such as beans, peppers, watermelon, and so much more.