FoodRecoveryorg

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 2023, to realign with our food recovery mission, MEANS decreased the number of meals we purchased. We received additional funding for this program from the Grubhub Community Fund to continue the program through the rest of the year. In 2023, we purchased 14,584 meals from 33 restaurants, which were redistributed to those in need through partnership with 31 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 surplus 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 2023, MEANS Database recovered 52,764,048 pounds of food. This food ranged from extra catered meals in Philadelphia, to school lunches in Orlando, and bulk loads of yogurt in Salt Lake City. We split our operations into two groups: small donations (less than 1000 lbs, fits into a standard car or van) and large donations (often palletized, coming from a warehouse or farm, requires a specialized truck for pickup), because the partners, process, and logistics for each donation type is different. MEANS Database does not purchase recovered food, but funding is used to provide transportation of the product. Small donations- We partner with a variety of food businesses, including restaurants, grocery stores, caterers, venues, and schools, to recover their extra product. We work nationwide, and have partners in every state, and our most robust programs are in Florida, New Jersey, Rhode Island, California, Pennsylvania, New York, and Washington, DC. Large donations- In January 2023, we hired a large donation procurement manager, William Bell. We worked with William and his connections to reroute truckloads of extra food from warehouses to nonprofits across the country. We used our newfound connections to donate millions 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 palletized donations and deliver them to food banks and community organizations across the country. Produce Home-delivery Program:We are fortunate to partner with Booker T Washington Community Service Center, an incredible organization in San Francisco that purchases and distributes fresh produce to the community, and Food Connect, an awesome food donation logistics company that specializes in home deliveries! For this partnership, we helped the team cover transportation costs accrued by distributing their produce to home-bound, food insecure individuals in San Francisco. We were able to move thousands of pounds of fresh produce, purchased from Black-owned farms in Northern CA, to community members across the Bay Area.