Kentucky Harvest ‘food rescue’ app saved more than 2.1 million pounds of food waste in 2024

WLKY

By Addie Meiners

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    LOUISVILLE, Kentucky (WLKY) — It’s been just more than a year since Kentucky Harvest launched its “food rescue hero” app.

Thanks to the work of volunteers like Bobbie Scofield, 2.1 million pounds of food was able to be rescued from going to waste.

“I’ve been doing this for over a year, almost a year and a half now. So I’ve got my route established,” Scofield said. “I’ve got it every Thursday. But, if I want to pick up 1 or 2 during the week, I can go on the app any day.”

The app connects more than 191 businesses and restaurants with more than 80 nonprofits that feed those in need.

If a business, like Thorntons, has excess food that wasn’t sold, it can be donated to any of the nonprofits through the app. Volunteers are then able to view the store on the app as a potential pickup location, grab the food, and then drop it off at a designated nonprofit.

“[The app] gives you directions and how many bags you can expect, etc. Then once you arrive, you go in and tell the app, and log what you’ve been given. Then at the end, when you finish your delivery, the person who accepts usually signs, ‘yes, I got those,'” Scofield said.

On Tuesday, Scofield picked up a run from Thorntons in Fairdale and delivered it to the Family Scholar House downtown.

“It’s such an amazing help and resource,” Deja Jackson, the director of community engagement for Family Scholar House, said.

“We actually have 279 families that live on our five campuses, and then we have a lot of pre-residential people who come in also and get food,” Jackson said. “Our main supply of food is not nearly enough for that many people. So we love having additional resources like Kentucky Harvest to help fill in that gap.”

It wouldn’t be possible without volunteers, according to Aaron Moore, the food rescue program manager for Kentucky Harvest.

“Our volunteers are really the bread and butter of our operation,” Moore said. “We’re not a food pantry, we’re not a food bank, but we’re helping fill in the gaps of the existing system that’s out there.”

Anyone can volunteer to deliver food for Kentucky Harvest.

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