Food Rescue with Rescuing Leftover Cuisine’s Robert Lee

Over one-third of the world’s food is lost or wasted, undermining efforts to end hunger and malnutrition while contributing 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. In low- and middle-income countries, over 40 percent of food loss occurs before a crop even makes it to market, whether due to inadequate storage, pests or microbes, spoilage, spillage in transport or otherwise. Eliminating food loss and waste (FLW) would provide enough food to feed two billion people, as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Addressing FLW is critical to global food security, nutrition and climate change mitigation, with food rescue playing an important role in these efforts. 

In order to raise awareness, exchange information and share success stories, USAID’s Food Loss and Waste Community of Practice created the USAID Kitchen Sink Food Loss and Waste Podcast. Our goal is to share monthly, bite-sized episodes that highlight the approaches USAID and the U.S. government are taking to address FLW. We hope these episodes provide a valuable resource for those interested in why we should care about FLW and how we can reduce it. 

Our latest episode is with Robert Lee, Co-Founder and CEO of Rescuing Leftover Cuisine, which redistributes excess food to people experiencing food insecurity. Robert shares what food rescue is and the impact it can have on reducing food waste. Additionally, we discuss how policies and regulations have shaped Rescuing Leftover Cuisine’s work and the future of food rescue.

You can subscribe to receive the latest episodes of USAID’s Kitchen Sink and listen to our episodes on the platform of your choice: Apple, Spotify, and more! Video recordings of the episodes are available on YouTube. Check in every month for new episodes as global experts discuss a range of issues about FLW and methane emissions - from the critical role of youth to the staggering economic costs - and learn about specific ways that USAID is tackling FLW around the world. 

If you have an idea for an episode topic you’d like to see featured or if you would like to participate in an episode of USAID’s Kitchen Sink, please reach out to Nika Larian (nlarian@usaid.gov).

There’s no time to waste!

Transcript

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Nika Larian) Welcome to USAID's Kitchen Sink a food loss and waste podcast. I'm your producer, Nika Larian. 30 to 40% of the food that is produced is either lost or wasted, contributing to a global food crisis with over 800 million going to bed hungry. Listen on as USAID experts speak with researchers and development professionals to explore solutions to this critical issue that demands a kitchen sink approach. When it comes to climate food security and food system sustainability, we have no time to waste. Thanks for tuning in to USAID's Kitchen Sink, a Food Loss and Waste podcast. My name is Nika Larian, Food Loss and Waste Advisor and producer of the U.S. Kitchen Sink. Today I will be speaking with Robert Lee, co-founder and CEO of Rescuing Leftover Cuisine. Together, we will discuss what food rescue is, how it has been shaped by policies and regulations, and how to make the economic case for food rescue. Welcome, Robert. Please introduce yourselves. Hi Nika Thanks for having me. My name is Robert Lee. I'm born and raised in New York City and, you know, very, very passionate about food rescue. Used to work at JPMorgan, In assetmanagement before quitting my job in 2014 to do this full time. And it's incredible to be here. Thanks again for having me. Thank you for joining us. So let's let's dive right in and let's get started with some basics. Can you provide some background on rescuing leftover cuisine? How did you get started and how are you evolving? Yeah, we at Rescuing Leftover Cuisine got started actually out of a university club at NYU that used to actually bring leftover dining hall food to shelters nearby. And honestly, I just, you know, I came across the club in my first week at NYU and just got so obsessed with it there. Just, you know, I honestly thought that it was just incredible to kind of, you know, take this excess food. And, you know, my own personal background, you know, made me kind of, of course, initially interested in the work because I my parents kind of came here with a very typical kind of immigrant story where essentially they were looking for a better life for their kids, but they didn't know the language and they struggled. And so I grew up thinking that insecurity was normal and that everyone was struggling with, you know, finding food and having one meal a day and watching my parents skipping meals and things like that. And, you know, that club that really kind of spoke to me and I wanted to help did, you know, work on weekends and stuff like that and rescue food, not just from, you know, one dining hall, but all the dining halls and, you know, the various kind of Argo teas on campus and stuff like that. So that's that's how we got started really as a as a very grassroots organization working with these dining halls. It was called two birdsone stone. And we essentially, you know, in our last year of college, we decided to kind of, you know, kind of think about how we can expand the concept of the food rescue kind of space into not just dining halls and not just kind of college campuses, but also kind of the, you know, for-profit businesses that have existed, obviously all around New York City. And so we entered into a venture competition. We didn't win first place. We won second place, won some seed money and got started and started Rescuing Leftover Cuisine after it in. So, yeah, it's been crazy to think about, but 11 years since then, since we started in 2013 and ever since, we've been looking to continue to grow, expand and the, you know, the operations we have, we continue to rescue food from all kinds of different food businesses such as bakeries and restaurants. Of course, but also now expanding into all kinds of different food businesses such as consumer packaged goods, products and manufacturers as well as retailers and various, you know, even food film productions and stadiums, which is which is incredible. So definitely a lot of expansion there. And I appreciate you, you sharing your genesis. That's a common theme with the entrepreneurs and the change makers that we talked to on the podcast. With a lot of this interest in food loss always happens in college, so it definitely seems like a really a target target area for for getting youth interested in the food loss and waste space. So so thank you for sharing that. And I know you mentioned, you know, how you are expanding where you are collecting this food. Can you speak to where the food is is heading to after that? Absolutely. Yeah. The way our model works is we partner with all kinds of different nonprofit recipients, as well as the homeless shelters, soup kitchens, food pantries, even schools and associations that provide food to the food insecure. And we really rely on them to be the option and, you know, provide the right types of food that they can actually use and distribute. For instance, the food pantry may not have a kitchen or a facility to process food so they can, you know, accept, you know, canned goods and shelf stable things. But a homeless shelter may have an actual kitchen and staff to process ingredients and to make it into meals and things like that. So we kind of do that matchmaking both on our website as well as kind of, you know, within our team to ensure that the food is going to where it needs to be. Definitely. And we've we've had some other conversations with those in the food rescue and food donations space. So we have another episode planned with a food bank. So a lot happening in this space and definitely something that comes up in those conversations are how policies and regulations around food rescue are shaping these models. The Food Donation Improvement Act has come up. So can you share your experience working with and perhaps around these policies and regulations and how it has shaped rescuing leftover cuisine? Absolutely. It's so exciting to see. I think, you know, thinking about when we first started and honestly, people didn't know that food rescue was okay to do. People had told me to stop what I'm doing and what I'm doing is wrong and that it's illegal and things like that. And, you know, I think, you know, learning from organizations like City Harvest Food Bank really helped us kind of understand that there was a, you know, a law, the Limits and Good Samaritan Act of 1996 that protected food donors from legal liability, gross negligence, of course. But, you know, there were just, I think, a lot of myths kind of going around at the time we started. And now it's just it's just so exciting to see how much kind of awareness there is about food rescue and about the fact that we can rescue our food and that we can donate. And in fact, there are enhanced tax incentives to do this. And, you know, you can reduce your food disposal costs. You can obviously contribute to your neighborhood and your community and kind of be associated with, you know, community focused, green kind of mission. And I think that, you know, the policies and the regulations around the rescue have really been really kind of pushing more food rescue kind of organizations forward and helping us, you know, continue to expand and grow. There's a lot of exciting kind of developments, as you mentioned, the FDA, the Food Donation Improvement Act, I believe now, I think I guess two years ago, I always used to say last year, but I guess is now two years. But, you know, I think it really helps that that specific piece of regulation has specifically helped a lot of schools and a lot of different organizations kind of come on board and rescue their access food as well. It's been incredible to kind of see, you know, the adoption of food rescue as a solution, not just for, you know, wasted food and food insecurity, but also for the environment. There's just so much so many natural resources, obviously, going into producing our food. And then the fact that, you know, wasted food goes to the landfill and doesn't get to go through the normal processes and contributes to, you know, far, far more harmful gases and carbon emissions. And so in general, it's just exciting to see so much more awareness and, you know, the regulations and the policies overall continue to evolve and grow with, you know, different organic waste and things like that. And hopefully, food rescue can be a part of that and be kind of either mandated or at least encouraged. I think, you know, as further kind of clarifications and additional protections come out, I think it's also really important to think about incentives too I mean, enhanced collections are great, but though they're hard to kind of calculate and a little bit hard to kind of actually, you know, get. And so, you know, we see a lot of really great momentum, but obviously it's still quite a lot to do. Robert, you raise a lot of a lot of great points in your response. Definitely the need for awareness raising is a consistent theme in the food loss and waste space. And that's, I think, on really all ends of the spectrum in terms of, you know, communicating to consumers what they can do to reduce their own food waste, really emphasizing the impacts of not tackling the issue of food loss in ways At USAID we call these the triple win opportunities of reducing food loss in ways making those connections to climate nutrition and food security and economic development. But of course, even if we are able to raise awareness of the impacts and the opportunity in the food loss away space, many people from consumers to companies are not going to make those changes unless it makes financial sense. And you also raise this idea of financial incentives. So I'd like to hear from you a little bit more on making this business case for food rescue. And can you speak to what's next, what's on the horizon in the food rescue space? Yeah, I mean, everything you said is spot on. I think there's there's just so much happening in the food rescue space. And I think as we get closer to, you know, the 2030 kind of carbon emissions goals and kind of objectives and things like that, I think food rescue is just going to continue to be highlighted as you know, one of the very serious kind of, solutions to a lot of the issues that we have. And I think that because of that, they're just going to be a lot of renewed or continued attention and focus on food rescue as a solution. And hopefully more research is obviously going towards that as well as more attention and people you know, being focused on the solution and the financial incentives, I think, are key for food businesses to be involved in this space. And I think that as that attention comes to the food rescue space, I think a lot of attention also needs to be thought about or be directed towards making the financial case more clear and enhanced actions are, as I mentioned, really, you know, great but still a little convoluted and still a little, difficult to actually, receive, maybe reducing food disposal costs can also help and, reducing food waste. General, as is also really great, obviously, for food businesses to not be producing that food save on that kind of bottom line. But ways to market the fact that, you know, food businesses are actually donating instead of throwing away the food and thinking of ways to increase revenue rather than always think about the costs is also a really, I think, exciting opportunity for the food rescue space as we move forward and as we don't have to kind of continue to make the argument that it's illegal or, you know, like, dispelling that myth, I think we can, as a rescue space, kind of start to talk about, how to capitalize on being a part of this movement. Ultimately, I think you know, it's it's really within our lifetimes that we're going to see consumers really, you know, expecting and demanding that their food businesses, donate excess food instead of thrown away. And, you know, as this becomes the universal standard and as more competitive pressures kind of build up, I think, you know, truly on the not just, expected that, food businesses do this, but also good for them to do it and to, you know, actually donate and get incentives to do it as a whole. So that's, you know, what I'm seeing and what I would I hope to kind of see, you know, over the next few years. But overall, this is a very exciting time to be doing this. Yeah, there's definitely a growing momentum in the food loss and waste space, which is much needed. As you pointed out, 2030 is not that far away. We are running out of time to reach our sustainable development goals. So a lot needs to be done in the space. So I'm excited about the momentum. But we need to keep pushing. And I know you mentioned these pressures on companies to kind of get with the program and see the benefits. So I'd like to ask you where you think that pressure would be best applied as is it coming from the consumer? Is it coming from policy? Like where do you think are the stakeholders that are truly at play in this? Yeah, there's is an interesting question. I think in general my belief is that dollar votes are really key and I think that all of us as consumers really have the ability to influence things like policy. And obviously policy is important and, you know, has a place in all of this to not just encourage, but also hopefully, you know, mandat it at some point, things like that. But I think it does start with us as consumers really directing our Dollar votes really It's really to the businesses that are doing this work, that are leading this work, that are showing that, you know, this is the new standard. This is how we should be doing business. And, you know, it's well within our power. Definitely, money talks. And that should really empower consumers to realize that they have a huge role to play in this food loss and waste space. They have a lot of power. They have a lot of opportunity, and they truly can be changemakers. So thank you for joining us, Robert. I appreciate you being a changemaker. Pushing the envelope and continuing to have these conversations to expand the ways that that we can reduce food loss and waste and, as you said, raise awareness and really make the case for the financial incentives for food rescue and overall reducing food loss waste, of course. Thank you so much for having me on. Thank you for tuning in to USAID's Kitchen Sink. This podcast was produced by Nika Larian and is organized by the USAID Food Loss and Waste Community of practice co-chairs Ahmed Kablan and Ann Vaughn. Additional thanks goes to Feed the Future, the US Government's Global Food Security Initiative and the USAID Center for Nutrition.(music playing)