How this "Grubhub of food rescue" works to feed communities with leftovers — Robert Lee, Rescuing Leftover Cuisine

[00:00:00] [SPEAKER_05]: When we first got started in 2013, people just told me, hey, when you're doing is illegal, stop doing it.

[00:00:05] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't have to literally print out the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act of 1996 and print

[00:00:10] [SPEAKER_05]: out state versions of that state law to basically show people that A, it's not illegal, but also

[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_05]: B, that the IRS incentivizes people to donate their excess food. I'm Jane Z. And this

[00:00:23] [SPEAKER_00]: is Farm to Future, the podcast all about eating better for the planet.

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Hello friends. I hope you're having a wonderful summer. I have been a bit MIA on the podcast

[00:00:36] [SPEAKER_00]: this season as I've been heads down with work and just traveling up ton the last few months,

[00:00:41] [SPEAKER_00]: but I have not forgotten about you guys and I'm hoping to get back on a regular posting

[00:00:46] [SPEAKER_00]: schedule soon. Today we've got a great episode. If you've ever thought about how much food

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_00]: goes to waste in restaurants, today's episode we're going behind the scenes to see what happens

[00:00:57] [SPEAKER_00]: to those leftovers. Robert Lee is the co-founder and CEO of Rescuing Leftover Cuisine and he's

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_00]: been tackling this issue for over a decade. Robert started rescuing food back in college

[00:01:10] [SPEAKER_00]: where he would deliver dining hall leftovers to a nearby homeless shelter in New York.

[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Almost 15 years later, he's built and scaled this nonprofit to saving millions of pounds of

[00:01:21] [SPEAKER_00]: food from ending up in landfills and feeding countless people across the country. Robert's

[00:01:27] [SPEAKER_00]: going to share the nuts and bolts behind their logistics and business model, how they still

[00:01:32] [SPEAKER_00]: manage to feed people during the pandemic when restaurants shut down and the big role that city

[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_00]: governments can play when it comes to food rescue. If you are new here, welcome, welcome.

[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Be sure to subscribe on Spotify or Apple podcasts or wherever you're listening

[00:01:48] [SPEAKER_00]: and you can find me, Jane Z on Instagram at farm.to.future. Let's dive in.

[00:01:57] [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the podcast Robert. Hi, thanks for having me. We met on a panel a few weeks ago

[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_00]: through our mutual friend, Sharayas. So the panel was all about food sustainability and we

[00:02:08] [SPEAKER_00]: had a few different businesses on to talk about food waste, which is what your nonprofit focuses

[00:02:14] [SPEAKER_00]: on and other things. But you started your nonprofit around the start of COVID, right?

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_03]: No, actually we got started in 2013. So about 11 years ago.

[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_03]: Oh, wow. Yeah, no.

[00:02:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Okay. That makes a lot more sense because I was looking at your website and you guys are

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_00]: across like what a dozen cities in the States now. Yeah, we're trying to, you know, do what

[00:02:37] [SPEAKER_05]: we can across the country. And obviously there's a lot more to do, but yeah, little by little.

[00:02:43] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Okay. So let's, let's start from the top then. So tell us about rescuing leftover

[00:02:48] [SPEAKER_00]: cuisine. How did you get started? And I definitely want to hear the story of how you jumped ship

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_00]: from your finance job to entering this, the food waste space. Absolutely. Yeah, just,

[00:03:00] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, starting from kind of this introduction of the organization, it's called rescuing

[00:03:05] [SPEAKER_05]: leftover cuisine super long, but pretty self-explanatory name. We bring excess food

[00:03:11] [SPEAKER_05]: from all kinds of different food businesses, like restaurants, catering companies. And we bring it

[00:03:16] [SPEAKER_05]: to people who need it at homeless shelters, soup kitchens, food pantries. And the way we do that

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_05]: is we have a technology based solution that allows people to be the transportation solution.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_05]: Back when we got started in 2013, we saw that there were really, really great organizations

[00:03:32] [SPEAKER_05]: like city harvest and food bank doing incredible work already. And we didn't need to kind of

[00:03:40] [SPEAKER_05]: model set up. They use trucks that basically, as you can imagine, you would want to be as

[00:03:46] [SPEAKER_05]: efficient as possible. So if you're going, going to the city and you're going to rescue

[00:03:50] [SPEAKER_05]: all this food, you're going to want to fill that truck up and make sure that you're not

[00:03:54] [SPEAKER_05]: wasting any space. And so because of that, they had minimum pound requirements. They don't

[00:03:59] [SPEAKER_05]: work with restaurants and different groups that have, you know, less than was worth it to go

[00:04:03] [SPEAKER_05]: down to the city to pay all the, you know, gas and parking tickets and whatever it is,

[00:04:08] [SPEAKER_05]: that, you know, it costs to actually go down and do a pickup. So we, you know, specifically

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_05]: targeted the smaller amounts of food that, you know, restaurants wanted to donate, but they

[00:04:19] [SPEAKER_05]: couldn't find the nonprofit solution for. And so we kind of filled that gap and we essentially

[00:04:25] [SPEAKER_05]: worked with the smaller groups and used volunteer activity to kind of be that transportation

[00:04:31] [SPEAKER_00]: solution. And that's, that's how it all works. Interesting. Okay. So you crowdsource the food

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_00]: rescuing, I guess you guys call it, but like the logistics of actually bringing the food

[00:04:43] [SPEAKER_00]: from restaurants to, do they go to donation centers? Yeah. So we do a direct food rescue

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_05]: model. So we don't like bank the food. We don't store anywhere. We go directly from

[00:04:54] [SPEAKER_05]: the restaurant or the food business directly over to the homeless shelter so you can

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: food pantry. Oh, interesting. So you're almost like Grubhub for food rescue. That's exactly

[00:05:05] [SPEAKER_05]: what we say. We love to say, yeah, we're the Grubhub of, you know, food rescue.

[00:05:11] [SPEAKER_00]: So technology based. There's the title of the episode.

[00:05:16] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. Plus Grubhub is an incredible support of ours and yeah, it's incredible to

[00:05:21] [SPEAKER_05]: get their support to keep on growing and make this, you know, the universal standard

[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_00]: it should be. Yeah. How, how do you work with them? Are they like funders or?

[00:05:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. During the pandemic, they really wanted to help out their restaurants that, you know,

[00:05:37] [SPEAKER_05]: were struggling during the time. And so they had a kind of community fund that was set up

[00:05:42] [SPEAKER_05]: to essentially help restaurants essentially create meals for the food insecure. And through

[00:05:48] [SPEAKER_05]: kind of our work and our activities, we were able to, you know, help support a lot

[00:05:53] [SPEAKER_05]: of restaurants through that difficult time. And then afterwards, after that, that time period

[00:05:59] [SPEAKER_05]: with the pandemic, we were able to continue to get support from Grubhub to work with the same

[00:06:04] [SPEAKER_05]: restaurants and just rescue their excess food basically. Very cool. Do you work with specific

[00:06:11] [SPEAKER_05]: types of restaurants? Yeah. I mean, we work with pretty much all types of restaurants,

[00:06:15] [SPEAKER_05]: whether it's fast casual or sit down or, you know, any different, any type really,

[00:06:20] [SPEAKER_05]: we work with all kinds of other types of food businesses, ones that you wouldn't really expect.

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_05]: So for example, we work with catering companies within offices. So when people have like

[00:06:31] [SPEAKER_05]: conferences or training events or, you know, all kinds of things where they have like this

[00:06:36] [SPEAKER_05]: beautiful spread of all kinds of pastries or fruits or, you know, things like that,

[00:06:40] [SPEAKER_05]: there's a lot that goes to waste. And so we're able to rescue all of that. We're also

[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_05]: so if there's like a, you know, film taking place and, you know, there's catering for the actors and

[00:06:57] [SPEAKER_05]: all the people we can rescue food from there. We actually just started working with city field

[00:07:02] [SPEAKER_05]: home of the Mets as well as family park over the last couple of months. So it's been

[00:07:08] [SPEAKER_05]: incredible to see, you know, just venues starting to donate their excess food instead of

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_05]: throwing it away. And as you can imagine, there's so many more instances. I mean,

[00:07:19] [SPEAKER_05]: planes have excess food. I've heard the army has a lot of, you know, excess food. They're just

[00:07:25] [SPEAKER_05]: really wherever there are people, there's food and whether it's food, there's a lot of excess.

[00:07:29] [SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, we're happy to rescue that and feed the people who need it.

[00:07:33] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I'm just picturing all the leftover hot dogs at Fenway Park after a Red Fox game.

[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. So I guess like if I'm someone living at a homeless shelter and we receive food from

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_00]: you guys, like on a given day, I could expect food from like maybe sweet green and the next

[00:07:55] [SPEAKER_00]: day it's dim sum. Like it sounds like it's a variety of things depending on what's available

[00:08:00] [SPEAKER_05]: that day. Yeah. What we do is we try to set it up so that it's more of a recurring basis.

[00:08:06] [SPEAKER_05]: So especially if it's a, you know, sweet green or, you know, dumpling or something

[00:08:09] [SPEAKER_05]: like that, it's coming from some kind of recurring source. So if it's the cafeteria

[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_05]: or anything like that, typically restaurants will have the delivery set on a specific day

[00:08:19] [SPEAKER_05]: of the week or multiple days of the week, but just on a consistent schedule. So that's when

[00:08:23] [SPEAKER_05]: they might do their inventory or throw out a few things. Or they may get wrong orders.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_05]: It happens all the time where they order something, but it's out or they get something

[00:08:32] [SPEAKER_05]: completely random that they never ordered. And so they're, you know, they can donate that

[00:08:37] [SPEAKER_05]: instead of throwing it away. And essentially we work with the non-profit recipients,

[00:08:41] [SPEAKER_05]: whether it's the homeless shelter, a soup kitchen, food pantry, or food bank. And we

[00:08:46] [SPEAKER_05]: essentially kind of arrange it so that they know what they're getting, plus or minus, you know,

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_05]: five, 10 pounds on a regular basis. And that way they can actually just not purchase that food

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_05]: and actually just use that money for other things, more housing, more job skills training,

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_05]: whatever it is, right? Their budget should be used on more long-term things, not just food.

[00:09:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, right. Yeah. And it sounds like a big difference between what you guys provide

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_00]: and maybe food donations that food banks get. Like a lot of their stock is non-perishable items,

[00:09:21] [SPEAKER_00]: whereas the food that you guys provide is like ready to eat pre-made meals.

[00:09:27] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it's all, it's interesting. I mean, when we first started, we definitely

[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_05]: had far more prepared meals and prepared, you know, food. With the pandemic,

[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_05]: we essentially saw that, I mean, a lot of our partners had to close, right? There were no

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_05]: catering events, no restaurants. And we at the same time saw a huge demand for food.

[00:09:52] [SPEAKER_05]: And so rather than kind of sit and wait until the pandemic was over,

[00:09:55] [SPEAKER_05]: we decided to actually go up the supply chain. We started working with CPG,

[00:10:00] [SPEAKER_05]: consumer packaged goods brands, direct to consumer brands, as well as just food

[00:10:04] [SPEAKER_05]: manufacturers in general. It started rescuing obsolete inventory. And that was obviously far

[00:10:12] [SPEAKER_05]: more kind of the shelf stable packaged food. And so now we've kind of, you know,

[00:10:18] [SPEAKER_05]: been welcoming partners back from the pandemic and sticking to kind of our, you know, roots of

[00:10:23] [SPEAKER_05]: doing what we always used to do, but with this added kind of layer of, you know, working

[00:10:28] [SPEAKER_05]: with pallet size donations. And so, yeah, now we kind of do both. And it's interesting to

[00:10:35] [SPEAKER_05]: kind of see that, you know, we work with different non-profit recipients that could

[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_05]: work with both, right? So some homeless shelters may have a whole kitchen and they have staff and

[00:10:45] [SPEAKER_05]: they have, you know, the facilities able to, you know, use raw ingredients. Whereas some

[00:10:51] [SPEAKER_05]: shelters may only have a microwave. And so they can only accept salads or hot dogs or,

[00:10:58] [SPEAKER_05]: you know, things that they can just, you know, heat up in a microwave and distribute to

[00:11:01] [SPEAKER_05]: their constituents. So we do all that matching, you know, behind the scenes,

[00:11:06] [SPEAKER_05]: making it so that it's easier for our nonprofit, for their both nonprofit recipients and our

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_05]: food donors. So the food can actually feed people. Yeah. Nice. Hopefully they're not

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_00]: microwaving their salads. I mean, I guess you could if you wanted to. I actually am like

[00:11:21] [SPEAKER_00]: weird and my parents cook all veggies and I enjoy veggies most when cooked and they'll

[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_00]: actually cook lettuce. In my opinion, it tastes pretty good. Nothing wrong with, you know,

[00:11:33] [SPEAKER_00]: frying some greens and maybe it tastes a little better. Yeah. With the food manufacturers

[00:11:43] [SPEAKER_00]: and the brands, what's their incentive for donating? Are they providing like packaged

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_00]: goods that are close to the expiration date? Is it like batches that didn't meet their

[00:11:56] [SPEAKER_05]: standards? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a lot of different use cases and, you know,

[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_05]: statistics are pretty startling. I mean, 40% of the food that we produce in this country is wasted

[00:12:07] [SPEAKER_05]: and, you know, obviously that's just a huge number just from, you know, just when you first

[00:12:13] [SPEAKER_05]: hear it. But when you think about the fact that that's enough nutrition to like more than

[00:12:20] [SPEAKER_05]: eliminate food insecurity, it's kind of insane. That's actually three times the amount we would

[00:12:27] [SPEAKER_05]: to basically feed all the food insecure people in the United States. So if we just took one third

[00:12:34] [SPEAKER_05]: of the food that we waste, brought it over to people who need it, we could eliminate food

[00:12:37] [SPEAKER_05]: insecurity right now. It's just a distribution problem and obviously it's a huge, you know,

[00:12:44] [SPEAKER_05]: environmental waste. We use half the U.S. land, 80% fresh water, 10% of our energy

[00:12:50] [SPEAKER_05]: budget just to bring all that food to our tables and then wasting 40% of it obviously

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_05]: is not the best thing to do with all of that. And then when it actually goes to landfills,

[00:13:01] [SPEAKER_05]: it produces methane gases which are very times worse for the environment.

[00:13:06] [SPEAKER_05]: So I mentioned all this because there's just so many different reasons why food donors donate.

[00:13:13] [SPEAKER_05]: Right? So number one, they sometimes have just obsolete inventory where they essentially

[00:13:19] [SPEAKER_05]: just don't want to miss out on sales and they produce a ton of food. And so some of

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_05]: the food just can't get it to retailers in time. And so they, it may be dated for like

[00:13:29] [SPEAKER_05]: three or four months from now, but it would be considered obsolete inventory because by the time

[00:13:34] [SPEAKER_05]: it gets to the supermarket and then to you, it would be like one month left and apparently

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_05]: don't buy it basically at the supermarket. And then there are interesting cases where it's

[00:13:45] [SPEAKER_05]: like branded food products that are branded for certain marketing events for like, you know,

[00:13:51] [SPEAKER_05]: July 4th and now it's like August and they have all this July 4th power of chips, right? Like

[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_05]: they just throw it out. They consider it as trash. And so there's all kinds of interesting

[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_05]: weird things that happen. And of course, you know, with all the advent of AI, there's

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_05]: obviously a lot of thought around how to like optimize ordering and figure out what the right

[00:14:16] [SPEAKER_05]: amount to order and produce is, but it seems like it'll never be truly perfect because people

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_05]: will always want to have the leeway to make a sale if there's a huge amount of demand.

[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, yeah. There's so much that's unpredictable with events like that. Like what if it rains

[00:14:35] [SPEAKER_00]: on July 4th and nobody comes out to your parade? Well, you're left with a bunch of

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_00]: chips or cupcakes. That makes a lot of sense. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. How do you all approach

[00:14:45] [SPEAKER_00]: food quality? How do you make sure things are good to eat? Like, are you guys liable?

[00:14:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Are the restaurants and suppliers liable? Yeah. That's always a big point of contention

[00:14:56] [SPEAKER_05]: and one of the biggest fears for a lot of potential food donors who just decide to throw

[00:15:02] [SPEAKER_05]: away the food. When we first got started in 2013, people just told me, hey,

[00:15:06] [SPEAKER_05]: what you're doing is illegal. Stop doing it. And I'll have to literally print out

[00:15:10] [SPEAKER_05]: the, you know, the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act of 1996 and print out state versions of

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_05]: that state law to basically show people that A, it's not illegal, but also B, that the IRS

[00:15:22] [SPEAKER_05]: incentivizes people to donate their excess food. You get enhanced access if you donate.

[00:15:28] [SPEAKER_05]: This is the Bill Emerson Good Samaritan Act of 1996. And then most recently,

[00:15:33] [SPEAKER_05]: the Food Donation Improvement Act just about two years ago was also passed by Congress.

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, there's no legal liabilities as long as, you know, obviously you're donating food in good

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_05]: faith and you're a licensed food vendor and you're not, you know, doing things negligently.

[00:15:52] [SPEAKER_05]: But we also only work with licensed food vendors, right? So we don't rescue food

[00:15:56] [SPEAKER_05]: from people's homes. We can't, right? We don't know whether or not you know how to

[00:16:01] [SPEAKER_05]: make food the right way. We don't know if that food is, you know, safe and fit for human

[00:16:06] [SPEAKER_05]: consumption. So we only work with licensed food vendors. And we also only work with licensed,

[00:16:11] [SPEAKER_05]: you know, 51C3 now properizations that are, you know, bringing food or providing food to

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_00]: food insecure populations. So there is a, in California, there's a cottage industry act,

[00:16:25] [SPEAKER_00]: something like that cottage industry food act where you can start a small food business

[00:16:30] [SPEAKER_00]: and like make like sourdough bread in your kitchen and sell it. And I think especially

[00:16:36] [SPEAKER_00]: during the pandemic, it allowed a lot of people to keep their businesses or like start

[00:16:41] [SPEAKER_00]: food businesses from their own kitchen, which is pretty cool. So I read on your,

[00:16:48] [SPEAKER_00]: somewhere on the internet that you had done, you had volunteered delivering

[00:16:52] [SPEAKER_00]: leftover dining hall foods to homeless shelters while you were at NYU. Is that what

[00:16:58] [SPEAKER_05]: inspired the model for rescuing? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Back, I mean, I back in 2009 when I was

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_05]: first, you know, attending NYU during, you know, those like first weeks where it's like a club

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_05]: pub fair and you see all these different clubs and you, you know, learn about what's, you know,

[00:17:17] [SPEAKER_05]: out there. I was a freshman and I was just like, I want to learn about what's, what's

[00:17:22] [SPEAKER_05]: going on in campus. And I came across this club that was called Two Birds One Stone that

[00:17:26] [SPEAKER_05]: brought leftover dining hall food to homeless shelters. And I was immediately really, you know,

[00:17:33] [SPEAKER_05]: just, I just thought it was so elegant. I thought the model was just really, really great.

[00:17:40] [SPEAKER_05]: Having students be the go-between between so much, so much waste on campus dining halls

[00:17:47] [SPEAKER_05]: and a homeless shelter that was literally right next door to an NYU dorm. And so yeah,

[00:17:55] [SPEAKER_05]: I learned about the model there. And I remember, you know, I heard about it and I thought it was

[00:18:01] [SPEAKER_05]: really, really cool. And when I asked a bunch of questions, I found out that they didn't,

[00:18:05] [SPEAKER_05]: you know, rescue food on weekends. And so that was the only reason why I joined their

[00:18:09] [SPEAKER_05]: executive board so that I could, you know, help expand their operation to, you know,

[00:18:13] [SPEAKER_05]: working on weekends too. And after that just stayed on board and, you know, ended up being

[00:18:18] [SPEAKER_05]: president for a couple of years and expanding it out to different, you know, dining halls

[00:18:24] [SPEAKER_05]: and that's how it slowly ended up consuming my entire life. But yeah,

[00:18:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Hey, yeah, till to this day. To this day. Yeah. So were you like carrying boxes of food from

[00:18:38] [SPEAKER_03]: the dining hall next door to the shelter? Yeah, yeah, 100%. I mean, the dining hall itself

[00:18:43] [SPEAKER_05]: wasn't right next door to the homeless shelter, but there was an NYU dorm that was right next

[00:18:47] [SPEAKER_05]: door. So there was like this NYU bus that would go from like the center of the campus

[00:18:51] [SPEAKER_05]: to the dorm. And it would just basically be the perfect bus because we were just taking,

[00:18:57] [SPEAKER_05]: just take the bus with the food and then get off at that stop in front of that

[00:19:02] [SPEAKER_05]: dorm and go right across the street. And so it was perfect. Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah.

[00:19:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Do you ever like go into the shelters and meet people and serve food yourself?

[00:19:15] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, absolutely. You know, we do actually, we have a kind of corporate group activity that kind

[00:19:23] [SPEAKER_05]: of, you know, centers on doing that a little bit more just because I think we want to show

[00:19:29] [SPEAKER_05]: kind of, you know, the impact of what the food is actually doing. Also, you know, sometimes

[00:19:33] [SPEAKER_05]: just rescuing the food is just kind of more of a delivery service like, you know,

[00:19:38] [SPEAKER_05]: grab up, you just deliver it from one place to another. But when we can bring different

[00:19:42] [SPEAKER_05]: groups out, student groups, you know, corporate groups and actually show them how the food goes

[00:19:47] [SPEAKER_05]: from one place to another, but also what the food actually can do for people. I think it

[00:19:51] [SPEAKER_05]: really resonates more. And so when we do that, we're able to, you know, just actually serve

[00:19:58] [SPEAKER_05]: the food that we rescue and talk to some of the people that it helps. And we get all kinds

[00:20:03] [SPEAKER_05]: of, you know, people who are willing to kind of share their story. Some of them were just

[00:20:09] [SPEAKER_05]: long time taxpayers and people who just never had, you know, health insurance and all of a

[00:20:14] [SPEAKER_05]: sudden got sick and then just ended up in this kind of situation. Others were just all kinds

[00:20:20] [SPEAKER_05]: of different backgrounds and stories, but those are the ones I think that, you know, always

[00:20:26] [SPEAKER_05]: kind of make me see the impact firsthand. I should also mention one of the reasons why I

[00:20:32] [SPEAKER_05]: got super involved with the NYU club was also because I personally also went through

[00:20:38] [SPEAKER_05]: experiencing food insecurity. And, you know, my parents came here looking for a better life

[00:20:44] [SPEAKER_05]: in Korea and typical kind of immigrant story. They didn't know the language, struggled.

[00:20:50] [SPEAKER_05]: And so when I was growing up, I thought food insecurity was just normal. I thought,

[00:20:54] [SPEAKER_05]: you know, people would just walk instead of taking the bus. I thought it was just normal

[00:20:59] [SPEAKER_05]: that like you would just skip meals and it would just be part of life and you would

[00:21:03] [SPEAKER_05]: rescue food as a normal way of doing things. But when I went to school, I sort of realized

[00:21:09] [SPEAKER_05]: that's probably not the case because kids would just throw out, you know, just perfectly fine

[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_05]: apples or like, you know, baby carrots and things like that. So I'll take those home and

[00:21:18] [SPEAKER_05]: just eat them and rescue them. So that's also something that I think comes full circle

[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_05]: for me when I do those kind of, you know, food rescue and then, you know,

[00:21:29] [SPEAKER_05]: because you can see the impact firsthand and see, you know, what the impact of the food

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_00]: can actually be. Yeah, it really hits home. Did you grow up in New York City?

[00:21:40] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, in Queens. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Queens boy. My father-in-law is from Queens

[00:21:46] [SPEAKER_00]: and he took us on a little field trip once to the neighborhood he grew up in.

[00:21:51] [SPEAKER_00]: But I appreciate you sharing that. And I can definitely relate on the, you know, immigrant

[00:21:57] [SPEAKER_00]: family front. I moved to Canada with my parents when I was four and, you know, the beginning

[00:22:03] [SPEAKER_00]: years. I mean, the first 10 years were pretty rough. But like you said, like when you're a

[00:22:10] [SPEAKER_00]: kid and you don't experience anything else, you just think that's normal. Like five people

[00:22:15] [SPEAKER_00]: living in a one bedroom apartment, normal. Sharing a bed with my grandma, normal. Yeah,

[00:22:21] [SPEAKER_00]: yeah. Exactly. What else do you know? Really? You know? Yeah, totally. Until you go to your

[00:22:28] [SPEAKER_00]: friend's houses and I was like, what? Wait, you have your own room? Yeah. Like, how does that work?

[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. I was also like always jealous of the kids that had like Dunkaroos and Lunchables

[00:22:40] [SPEAKER_00]: and all like the fun foods for lunch. Yeah. My mom would pack me a banana for snack every

[00:22:48] [SPEAKER_00]: day. And actually, this is kind of bad. I was the problem because I just got so sick of

[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_00]: bananas that I started throwing them out. And then one day, one day I had a teacher that was

[00:23:01] [SPEAKER_00]: like, she was, she was kind of mean. But she saw that and she was like, you get the banana

[00:23:08] [SPEAKER_00]: out of the trash. And it was one of those giant like metal garbage bins. And I was small.

[00:23:14] [SPEAKER_00]: It was like kindergarten. And I had to climb all the way into the garbage bin and take it out.

[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_00]: So I was scarred for a while. That's a big one. Yeah. Yeah. But now- There's probably better ways to

[00:23:25] [SPEAKER_00]: teach someone not to, you know, throw out food. Yeah. But I no longer throw away my bananas.

[00:23:33] [SPEAKER_00]: And I appreciate them. And yeah. Well, I mean, I feel like all kids also like, you know,

[00:23:39] [SPEAKER_05]: even me when I was a kid, like you're always going to find something that you don't like,

[00:23:42] [SPEAKER_05]: right? And you're not going to eat it. You're not going to want to eat it. I think it also helps

[00:23:46] [SPEAKER_05]: teaching kids like where the food comes from and how much work and like water and stuff goes into

[00:23:52] [SPEAKER_05]: making that food. It's just kind of eye-opening. Yeah. It's funny when you grow up in the city,

[00:23:56] [SPEAKER_00]: you're just like so disconnected. Yeah. It just shows up. So yeah, milk, carrots,

[00:24:02] [SPEAKER_00]: it all comes from the grocery store. Right. Yeah. And then we have these like very

[00:24:07] [SPEAKER_00]: outdated, idyllic images of, you know, farmer Joe and the cows and, you know, growing these

[00:24:13] [SPEAKER_00]: things on a small plot of land. But it really- Yeah.

[00:24:17] [SPEAKER_00]: The industrial farming system does not look like that. And there's all these middle

[00:24:22] [SPEAKER_00]: distributors and manufacturers. Fascinating. I mean, I love learning about that. That's like

[00:24:28] [SPEAKER_00]: why this podcast exists. But okay. So one thing I really wanted to dig into and commend

[00:24:34] [SPEAKER_00]: on is like you took that model from the student club and you really like built it out into a

[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_00]: sophisticated business model, I would say. Right? Where you're a 501 C3 non-profit, but you have

[00:24:48] [SPEAKER_00]: built out regular income streams. Right? Can you talk about your revenue model?

[00:24:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. When we first got started, we had everything for free just because

[00:24:58] [SPEAKER_05]: we wanted to make a difference and wanted to make the barrier entry super, super low.

[00:25:03] [SPEAKER_05]: But we realized that there were, you know, difficulties with partnering when that happened.

[00:25:09] [SPEAKER_05]: So for instance, we would have a partnership with a food donor restaurant. They would

[00:25:14] [SPEAKER_05]: package the food for us. We would go by and, you know, everything would be great

[00:25:19] [SPEAKER_05]: for the first few weeks. And then let's say, you know, obviously turnover is pretty high in

[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_05]: the restaurant industry. Let's say the night manager decides to quit and it's a new night

[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_05]: manager. And we will have an arrangement with the owner and the owner doesn't tell

[00:25:34] [SPEAKER_05]: the night manager because it's not important to them. So the night manager has no idea,

[00:25:38] [SPEAKER_05]: just throws out the food. So our volunteer shows up and then they're like, where's the food?

[00:25:43] [SPEAKER_05]: They're like, oh, I didn't know I had to package the food. And so the volunteer is

[00:25:47] [SPEAKER_05]: upset because they came here for no reason. And so the next week, the volunteer decides

[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_05]: not to go. But of course that's the week when, you know, the manager actually packages

[00:25:56] [SPEAKER_05]: the food. So it kind of just goes in a very downward spiral. And, you know, some obviously,

[00:26:04] [SPEAKER_05]: you know, sometimes volunteers also just, they have more important things going on

[00:26:08] [SPEAKER_05]: in their life. They have to prioritize their work or health or other things.

[00:26:11] [SPEAKER_05]: And so whenever that happens, it kind of just, you know, generates this downward

[00:26:14] [SPEAKER_05]: spiral as well. And essentially for us, we wanted to figure out a way obviously to capture

[00:26:20] [SPEAKER_05]: some of the value that we're providing for like the enhanced tax reductions and the reduced

[00:26:25] [SPEAKER_05]: disposal costs for the food donor, as well as the intangibles of kind of being associated

[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_05]: with the green mission as well. And so we decided to charge and we started off with like,

[00:26:36] [SPEAKER_05]: we experimented a lot and we started off with like 25 cents per pound model, but that was

[00:26:41] [SPEAKER_05]: terrible because none of the food donors that we worked with actually knew what they had

[00:26:46] [SPEAKER_05]: and how much pounds of food they were going to donate. And so they'd be shocked by the bill.

[00:26:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they have to like measure it before they...

[00:26:51] [SPEAKER_05]: No one does. They just throw it out and they don't worry about it. And so they were shocked

[00:26:56] [SPEAKER_05]: by how much actually poundage wise would come up. So we converted it instead to, you know,

[00:27:02] [SPEAKER_05]: a per pickup model that was easier for them to budget for, to understand and to pay for.

[00:27:07] [SPEAKER_05]: And so that allowed us to, if our volunteers didn't show up, we can refund them. We can

[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_05]: say sorry. We could even give them more than, you know, whatever the value of the pickup was

[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_05]: as a way of saying sorry. And then if there was something that they did on their side that

[00:27:22] [SPEAKER_05]: wasn't aligned with the process, we can keep the charge or do something to make it so that

[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_05]: there's skin in the game so that they can say, hey, this is something that is a value

[00:27:33] [SPEAKER_05]: that needs to be put into their SOP, their standard operating procedures and

[00:27:38] [SPEAKER_05]: something that is part of the training for all the night workers, all the night managers.

[00:27:44] [SPEAKER_05]: And so even if it's not RLC, even if, you know, we disappear tomorrow, they can say, hey,

[00:27:50] [SPEAKER_05]: for us to get this enhanced tax deduction or for us to get, you know, all the disposal

[00:27:54] [SPEAKER_05]: costs or all other benefits, we'll go find a food rescue and work with somebody rather than

[00:28:00] [SPEAKER_05]: nobody. So we're trying to really make this the actual universal standard, something that's

[00:28:06] [SPEAKER_05]: a habit, something that actually, you know, can be built into their business model as well.

[00:28:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Can I ask how much you charge for pickup?

[00:28:14] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, it's $20 a pickup, nominal fee.

[00:28:18] [SPEAKER_05]: That's really reasonable.

[00:28:20] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah. I mean, I think it's very reasonable. You do it once a week when you do your inventory,

[00:28:25] [SPEAKER_05]: it could be very, very minimal impact on your overall operation. So it helps us cover the

[00:28:31] [SPEAKER_05]: cost of transporting the food. When we first started out, as I mentioned, we started off with

[00:28:35] [SPEAKER_05]: you know, free everything. And as we scaled and grew, we saw that volunteers all have the same

[00:28:43] [SPEAKER_05]: kind of schedule. Like everyone takes vacation in August, everyone, you know, has finals during

[00:28:48] [SPEAKER_05]: the same week. Everyone has XYZ plans on Friday nights. That is difficult because we need people

[00:28:54] [SPEAKER_05]: to transport food on during those times. And so we started actually paying people too, during

[00:28:58] [SPEAKER_05]: those times. We have a mixture of like paid gig economy workers who, you know, transport

[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_05]: food. And we have volunteered. And so the charge basically helps us cover the cost,

[00:29:10] [SPEAKER_05]: provide a much more professional level of service that is 99%, you know, success rate

[00:29:14] [SPEAKER_05]: and creates that habit for everyone.

[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Are people delivering food like on foot, by bike, on bus? Or do you guys provide

[00:29:24] [SPEAKER_00]: any transportation?

[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, we don't just provide transportation. They're all like 1099 contractors. They

[00:29:30] [SPEAKER_05]: basically bring, you know, their own equipment to the solution. If they're volunteers, they

[00:29:35] [SPEAKER_05]: also bring kind of what they have. But essentially in New York City is still obviously

[00:29:40] [SPEAKER_05]: very unique in that we can walk, you know, there's just tons of places to bring food to.

[00:29:46] [SPEAKER_05]: In our other locations, we all drive. So obviously, you know, slightly different.

[00:29:51] [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, Atlanta is not as walkable.

[00:29:54] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, no. It's just how the cities are built, you know, like we have to accommodate

[00:30:00] [SPEAKER_05]: for, yeah.

[00:30:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. That's a really smart model. I'm just like picturing all the

[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_00]: logistics. It's fascinating to me. I did see on your website that you had a calendar of food

[00:30:14] [SPEAKER_00]: rescue events. What do those entail?

[00:30:17] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, that's exactly our model. So we, as soon as we partner with the food donor

[00:30:21] [SPEAKER_05]: partner, they tell us the schedule. Let's say, you know, we want to donate Monday,

[00:30:24] [SPEAKER_05]: Wednesday, Friday, whatever the schedule is. And then after we find a nonprofit recipient

[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_05]: wants to take that food, that's get those schedules. It's kind of a hub and spoke model.

[00:30:33] [SPEAKER_05]: So it might be like on Mondays, it goes to one location. And for Wednesdays,

[00:30:37] [SPEAKER_05]: Fridays, it goes to a different location. But whenever those routes are all set up,

[00:30:41] [SPEAKER_05]: we put them up on our website and then volunteers and all of our pay to rescue

[00:30:45] [SPEAKER_05]: is able to just see that all live on our calendar and pick pickups that they want to

[00:30:50] [SPEAKER_05]: take and they can drop them and they can rearrange them. And it's all done through

[00:30:54] [SPEAKER_05]: our website. Right there.

[00:30:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Got it. So it's like a shift model where they pay the shifts.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_05]: Exactly.

[00:31:00] [SPEAKER_00]: Cool. OK, how do you recruit volunteers and how many do you have now?

[00:31:06] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I mean, we have it's a very long tail, right? As you can imagine,

[00:31:09] [SPEAKER_05]: there's a lot of people who kind of just hopped in once, you know, try to do it

[00:31:13] [SPEAKER_05]: every so often every few months. But then there's like this small contingent of people

[00:31:18] [SPEAKER_05]: who are doing it every week, multiple times a week for several hours a week.

[00:31:22] [SPEAKER_05]: Right. And so we have something like 10,000 volunteers across the country who

[00:31:27] [SPEAKER_05]: registers and signed up at one point. Oh, how do we recruit?

[00:31:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I mean, everything is done online.

[00:31:33] [SPEAKER_05]: So even if we go to like tabling events, which we do, we kind of bring a laptop

[00:31:38] [SPEAKER_05]: and people can just sign up online to create an account on our website.

[00:31:42] [SPEAKER_05]: So typically we like to just market online as well, because then you can just go

[00:31:46] [SPEAKER_05]: straight from online to online. So we recruit on places like volunteer match,

[00:31:51] [SPEAKER_05]: like then idealist places that people can search volunteer opportunities

[00:31:56] [SPEAKER_05]: and then land on our website. Nice.

[00:31:59] [SPEAKER_00]: Have you gone back to NYU and worked with that student club?

[00:32:03] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Actually, currently NYU is a food dinner partner as well

[00:32:07] [SPEAKER_05]: from the executive MBA program. We like to not need to overlap with other

[00:32:13] [SPEAKER_05]: groups that are doing kind of food rescue in the dining hall space.

[00:32:16] [SPEAKER_05]: But there are other, as you can imagine, other sources of food

[00:32:20] [SPEAKER_05]: on campuses that we can receive food from. But yeah, NYU has been

[00:32:24] [SPEAKER_05]: super, super supportive and really, really great community.

[00:32:28] [SPEAKER_05]: Actually, one of our board members is also from NYU and yeah, definitely a lot of

[00:32:33] [SPEAKER_05]: great folks who will want to support and do what they can to make this the universal standard.

[00:32:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I could see this being like you could have branches at different universities.

[00:32:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Do you do any recruiting with students that way?

[00:32:48] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, yeah, I mean, we used to actually right before the pandemic,

[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_05]: we had like maybe like few clubs, essentially. We decided to not do that actually because it

[00:32:57] [SPEAKER_05]: actually is a lot of work to continue to kind of have that churn turnover and having a new

[00:33:04] [SPEAKER_05]: president every year of every single branch and things like that. And also there's a group that

[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_05]: does, you know, there's actually multiple groups that do food rescue work in kind of

[00:33:13] [SPEAKER_05]: dining halls on campuses. And so we felt that there was no real need to kind of,

[00:33:18] [SPEAKER_05]: duplicate that effort really.

[00:33:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Do you ever see this as something that a city could provide as like a public infrastructure?

[00:33:28] [SPEAKER_00]: Like as part of compost pickup and things like that?

[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, 100%. Actually, I think Boston is actually like a leading city in this,

[00:33:36] [SPEAKER_05]: in food rescue. The mayor actually has like an initiative that we're part of that essentially

[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_05]: is a group of food rescuers. She's collecting information and trying to figure out how to do it

[00:33:48] [SPEAKER_05]: in the best way. But 100% yes, I think the city, a, the city can lead by example. City agencies

[00:33:54] [SPEAKER_05]: should be donating excess food whenever they have press conferences or whatever they are

[00:33:58] [SPEAKER_05]: doing, you know, conferences in their actual facilities. But also they should,

[00:34:03] [SPEAKER_05]: you know, be talking about it and providing incentives for, you know, folks that actually

[00:34:08] [SPEAKER_05]: donate their food instead of throwing it out. There's definitely a huge role that city

[00:34:12] [SPEAKER_05]: governments can play across the country. But Boston is doing a really great job.

[00:34:16] [SPEAKER_00]: Oh yay, Michelle Wu. Let's go.

[00:34:19] [SPEAKER_04]: Yep, exactly.

[00:34:21] [SPEAKER_00]: That's awesome. Have you met with her?

[00:34:24] [SPEAKER_04]: No, I personally haven't, but yeah. Yeah. I've heard great things.

[00:34:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. I've also heard great things. Okay. Fun question. What, what do your food routines

[00:34:35] [SPEAKER_00]: look like these days? Like, what do you love to eat? Do you like to cook?

[00:34:39] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah. Yeah, I honestly, I'm, I'm probably like the most simple type of chef in terms of,

[00:34:47] [SPEAKER_05]: I don't like it to be super complicated. So I like making like very simple things.

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay.

[00:34:52] [SPEAKER_05]: Cost of steak. I just, I'd probably make steak like once a week.

[00:34:56] [SPEAKER_05]: Okay, nice.

[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_05]: But yeah, I do, you know, enjoy the process. It's definitely very different from my early days for sure.

[00:35:04] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. Maybe didn't get to have steak every week, but that's awesome.

[00:35:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Gotta enjoy it.

[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, absolutely. But I'm lazy. It'll be just easier for me to just fry it, flip it.

[00:35:18] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. See to me, I feel like steak is like something difficult to like get perfectly,

[00:35:23] [SPEAKER_00]: but you probably spent a lot of time on that.

[00:35:28] [SPEAKER_05]: Just mess it up a lot and then eventually you get to the point where you're like,

[00:35:32] [SPEAKER_03]: this is pretty good. It's not bad.

[00:35:34] [SPEAKER_00]: What do you season it with?

[00:35:37] [SPEAKER_03]: I just do salt and pepper, you know, just, yeah, three minutes on a side for me. And then

[00:35:42] [SPEAKER_03]: it's just medium.

[00:35:43] [SPEAKER_00]: And then it's perfect.

[00:35:45] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah. I also do a medium rare or like medium. I find like if you get a good quality cut,

[00:35:51] [SPEAKER_00]: you don't really need to.

[00:35:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I think that's what it is. It's key.

[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_00]: This has been really fun and cool to get to know you. You like seem like such a chill dude

[00:36:00] [SPEAKER_00]: and I love all the work that you're doing. 10 years, that's pretty massive.

[00:36:05] [SPEAKER_00]: I guess one like closing thought is like from 10 years of running this org,

[00:36:11] [SPEAKER_00]: how do you think you've grown as a person?

[00:36:14] [SPEAKER_05]: I mean, from working at J. Morgan and then quitting my job to do this full time,

[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_05]: I definitely didn't expect to kind of learn as much as I did.

[00:36:23] [SPEAKER_05]: I think I mostly did it so that I could learn and make an impact

[00:36:27] [SPEAKER_05]: and kind of see what it is to be kind of like a small business essentially.

[00:36:33] [SPEAKER_05]: And growing from basically no employees to 15 employees on the payroll,

[00:36:38] [SPEAKER_05]: I've kind of gone through a lot of iterations of, you know, just being mired in the day to day

[00:36:44] [SPEAKER_05]: and loving the rescuing part and just spending my full time just rescuing food for a while

[00:36:50] [SPEAKER_05]: to like realizing I should probably not be in the business as much

[00:36:55] [SPEAKER_05]: and work on the business more.

[00:36:58] [SPEAKER_05]: And then, you know, learning how to hire people, learning how to fire people,

[00:37:02] [SPEAKER_05]: learning how to manage people I think has been a huge learning experience.

[00:37:07] [SPEAKER_05]: Definitely didn't want to contribute to people feeling like they were going to be food insecure

[00:37:12] [SPEAKER_05]: and that kind of thing definitely weighed psychologically on my mind

[00:37:15] [SPEAKER_05]: and made me move a lot slower in terms of letting people go.

[00:37:18] [SPEAKER_05]: But sometimes that is the best case scenario for two parties

[00:37:21] [SPEAKER_05]: and I think that it's not the end of the world for either party

[00:37:24] [SPEAKER_05]: and you can still do it in a nice, humane way that is best for obviously the donors

[00:37:29] [SPEAKER_05]: donating to the organization because they want you to grow

[00:37:32] [SPEAKER_05]: as well as a person who's clearly not in a well-defined role

[00:37:35] [SPEAKER_05]: that can make the most of their talents.

[00:37:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I mean there's just so many lessons and things I've learned along the way

[00:37:42] [SPEAKER_05]: and I think it's hard to choose just one.

[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of battle scars.

[00:37:47] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I mean I think it's all like, you know, it's all foundational, right?

[00:37:50] [SPEAKER_05]: You kind of solve different problems over the years

[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_05]: and there's a lot of different things that you learn that really kind of compile up

[00:37:59] [SPEAKER_05]: and after a while I think hopefully we get to the point where we hit a tipping point

[00:38:05] [SPEAKER_05]: where the majority of food businesses are working with a food rescue

[00:38:10] [SPEAKER_05]: and that will hopefully make the movement permanently shift over

[00:38:13] [SPEAKER_05]: until everyone demanding that excess food is donating instead of being thrown out.

[00:38:19] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, on that note, what's next for rescuing leftover cuisine?

[00:38:24] [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we just finished up our kind of three-year plan coming out from the pandemic

[00:38:28] [SPEAKER_05]: and we're launching a new five-year plan and at the moment

[00:38:32] [SPEAKER_05]: we're really in need of food donor partners.

[00:38:35] [SPEAKER_05]: So, you know, while we've been really, really excited to bring on partners

[00:38:38] [SPEAKER_05]: like the New York Stock Exchange, like Citi Field and Fenway Park, we need more

[00:38:43] [SPEAKER_05]: and we just have so, so many volunteers.

[00:38:45] [SPEAKER_05]: Actually, if you look at the website calendar, you'll see as soon as we put on

[00:38:50] [SPEAKER_05]: calendar events, they're snatched up like that.

[00:38:53] [SPEAKER_05]: Volunteers are just waiting on the wings, you know, looking for opportunities to volunteer.

[00:38:57] [SPEAKER_05]: So we really need people to help us, you know, pave the way.

[00:39:00] [SPEAKER_05]: Ask your favorite food business what they do with their excess food.

[00:39:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Ask your restaurant, your canine company if you're hosting a wedding.

[00:39:07] [SPEAKER_05]: Ask what they do with their excess food.

[00:39:09] [SPEAKER_05]: Do what you can to kind of raise the expectation

[00:39:12] [SPEAKER_05]: that that excess food shouldn't go to waste, right?

[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_05]: I mentioned all the different ways it makes a huge difference in not just carbon emissions,

[00:39:20] [SPEAKER_05]: but also people facing food insecurity.

[00:39:23] [SPEAKER_05]: But on top of that, all kinds of other kind of different facets,

[00:39:26] [SPEAKER_05]: including like moral aspects of why we're even farming food

[00:39:31] [SPEAKER_05]: if we don't need to slaughter them and things like that.

[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_05]: There's so many different components that I didn't get the chance to talk about.

[00:39:38] [SPEAKER_05]: But, you know, we need people to talk about food rescue.

[00:39:41] [SPEAKER_05]: And already it's been a huge change from when we first started

[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_05]: to people thinking it was illegal to now people knowing what food rescue as a term even is.

[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_05]: But we need to stop here and we need to get to the point

[00:39:52] [SPEAKER_05]: where everyone demands that excess food is rightfully donated,

[00:39:57] [SPEAKER_05]: given the chance of these defeat somebody rather than being thrown out.

[00:40:01] [SPEAKER_05]: So that's where we're headed.

[00:40:03] [SPEAKER_05]: We're trying to double in the next five years.

[00:40:05] [SPEAKER_05]: We're trying to expand and grow, but it all starts with food donors.

[00:40:09] [SPEAKER_05]: So let us know, help us out and sign up online.

[00:40:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's a great way to close out.

[00:40:16] [SPEAKER_00]: To make it easy for folks, do you have like a script or like a one-liner pitch

[00:40:20] [SPEAKER_00]: that I walk into my favorite restaurant or maybe I DM them on Instagram?

[00:40:25] [SPEAKER_00]: What do I tell them?

[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, honestly, I always like to just go in and be like,

[00:40:30] [SPEAKER_05]: oh, I noticed there's just all this incredible food.

[00:40:33] [SPEAKER_05]: Just want to know what you do with the excess at the end of the night.

[00:40:36] [SPEAKER_05]: And then usually they'll say we don't know or those kind of things.

[00:40:40] [SPEAKER_05]: They kind of just deflect.

[00:40:42] [SPEAKER_05]: Hopefully they actually do work with a partner, which would be incredible.

[00:40:46] [SPEAKER_05]: But regardless of what they say, even if they do say that they do work with somebody,

[00:40:49] [SPEAKER_05]: typically I say that's amazing.

[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, not amazing if they throw out the food,

[00:40:53] [SPEAKER_05]: but you know, that's amazing if you're working with somebody.

[00:40:57] [SPEAKER_05]: I just heard about this organization called Rescuing Left to Rue Cuisine.

[00:41:00] [SPEAKER_05]: They do exactly what they sound like.

[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_05]: They rescue the food for you to make it easy.

[00:41:04] [SPEAKER_05]: Feel free to check them out on rescuinglefttoruepuisine.org.

[00:41:08] [SPEAKER_05]: Well, .com also works, but just redirects to .org.

[00:41:12] [SPEAKER_05]: So yeah, so that's pretty much what I like to say.

[00:41:16] [SPEAKER_05]: We truly want to make this the universal standard.

[00:41:19] [SPEAKER_05]: So we'll cater to the food donor partner and make it easy as possible for them to donate.

[00:41:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, amazing.

[00:41:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, thank you for coming on the show

[00:41:27] [SPEAKER_00]: and for all the amazing work that you and your team do.

[00:41:31] [SPEAKER_00]: I really do hope that you're right and that we continue on this path

[00:41:36] [SPEAKER_00]: and this becomes the norm for everybody.

[00:41:38] [SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.

[00:41:39] [SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for having me.

[00:41:40] [SPEAKER_05]: Thanks for helping me share the story, spread the word here.

[00:41:43] [SPEAKER_05]: Appreciate it.

[00:41:46] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's a wrap.

[00:41:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for tuning in.

[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Remember to nourish your body and I'll talk to you next time.