412 Food Rescue app is gaining national attention

Ian Thomas
Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018 9:00 p.m. | Tuesday, Jan. 23, 2018 9:00 p.m.

Stephanie Strasburg | Trib Total Media

412 Food Rescue volunteer driver Rebecca Maclean, 37, of Highland Park, pulls bags of bread from Five Points Artisan Bake Shop from the trunk of her car for delivery in Homewood on Thursday, July 30, 2015. 412 Food Rescue finds food that would otherwise be thrown away and diverts it to people and organizations who need it. 'It's small transactions but it makes a huge difference,' says 412 Food Rescue co-founder Jennifer England, who added it is because of volunteers that the scale of the operation works.

Stephanie Strasburg | Trib Total Media

Leah Lizarondo, 42, of Stanton Heights, carries bags of surplus bread out of Five Points Artisan Bake Shop in Squirrel Hill to donate them to people in need in Homewood on Thursday, July 30, 2015. Lizarondo, alongside Jennifer England (back left) and Braddock counterpart Gisele Fetterman started 412 Food Rescue, which finds food that would otherwise be thrown away and diverts it to people and organizations who need it. The organization collects food that would otherwise end up in landfills from area businesses such as Costco, Whole Foods, Target, East End Food Co-op, Gordon Food Services, Great Harvest Bread Co. and Carson St. Deli.

In February, 412 Food Rescue, a Pittsburgh-based organization whose self-described mission is to “prevent perfectly good food from entering the waste stream,” will launch an update to its smartphone app. The update is designed to make it more user-friendly and expand the tool's reach beyond the city limits.

Since its launch in 2015, 412 Food Rescue has followed a model that pairs one of its approximately 400 donors — area grocery and food service providers — with nonprofit partners, such as Meals on Wheels, to redistribute food that cannot be sold, with an emphasis on healthy foods, like fresh vegetables and breads.

The organization does not warehouse these donations. Rather, it offers a model of redistributing food directly from the point of donation to the point of use. The model relies on volunteers signing up to transport these donations through the organization's website or the app, which was launched in November 2016.

On the small, streamlined scale at which 412 Food Rescue operates, the model is a new one. As such, the organization is still learning what works.

“We're the only food rescue organization in Pittsburgh and also in the United States. We are the only one with our model of recovery, so there's really no precedent to look to,” says organization CEO and co-founder Leah Lizarondo.

Currently, 412 Food Rescue's focus is on the Pittsburgh region. Given its unique approach to food rescue, however, word has spread and people have downloaded the app, available in the App Store and on Google Play. Some have seen potential for the app's use in their own cities and contacted the 412 Food Rescue about implementing the model.

“We've had hundreds of inquiries in the United States to bring the model to their city and then some inquiries globally, as well,” Lizarondo says.

Implementation in a new city requires donors, nonprofit partners and volunteers to transport the food. The 412 Food Rescue technology facilitates the coordination of these components.

“This next release of the app allows it to work in other cities, so if you are in Chicago, San Francisco, or Philadelphia and you want to bring 412 Food Rescue to your city, we'll help you do that,” Lizarondo says.

So far, 412 Food Rescue has redistributed 2.5 million pounds of food. If the 412 Food Rescue model can be implemented successfully in other cities, it has the potential to deliver even more.

Ian Thomas is a Tribune-Review contributing writer.

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