A local nonprofit has kept 15 million pounds of good food from ending up in landfills by diverting it to food-insecure Cincinnatians.
Last Mile Food Rescue is celebrating five years of reducing food waste and hunger. It launched in 2020.
CEO and Co-founder Eileen Budo says food rescue wasn’t a new concept then, but Last Mile approached it with novel technology. The organization’s volunteers use an Uber-like app to find surplus food that stores and restaurants are donating, and deliver it to food pantries, soup kitchens, and other organizations.
“It's just incredible, the amount of food that can be picked up by one person in a vehicle, done over and over and over again,” Budo said.
Over the years, the nonprofit has grown. It now has a small fleet of trucks and a refrigerated van that help facilitate larger-scale food donations.
Budo says a typical pick-up from one of Last Mile’s biggest donors, United Dairy Farmers, still looks like a few gallons of milk, some ready-made sandwiches, and boxes of doughnuts that all fit in the back of a volunteer’s car. Last Mile’s volunteers rescue food from Greater Cincinnati’s approximately 90 UDF stores twice a week, which amounts to about a million pounds of food a year.
“Think about all that milk, all of those sandwiches that are going to some of our smaller pantries, after school programs, and so forth... [We’re] feeding a lot of people with food that ordinarily would have gone to the dump,” Budo said.
Last Mile has provided 12.5 million meals to people in need during the last five years.
The organization's work is not over yet, Budo says. Its next goal is to rescue enough food to end food insecurity in Cincinnati.
Budo says this year, Last Mile is set to rescue 5 million pounds of food.
“In order to solve the problem of food insecurity, we need to rescue about 15 million pounds per year. And that's within our reach,” Budo said.
Last Mile Food Rescue is hosting an event Tuesday to celebrate its five years of impact. Miles of Gratitude will take place from 5-7:30 p.m. at the Mettey Event Center at Matthew 25 Ministries.
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