As of March 2022, global food prices have reached an all-time high. Over the course of the pandemic, the number of food insecure households in the U.S. has increased from 10 million households in 2020 to 14 million households in 2022. Help RLC prevent wasted food by rescuing and redistributing surplus meals to the people who need them most. Now is the time to spread our mission further across the United States!
40% of food produced in the U.S. is wasted, meanwhile 1 in 8 households are food insecure. Food waste is the largest material occupying landfills, and contributes to methane gases, which are more harmful to the environment than CO2. The natural resources used to create wasted food, tax dollars used to subsidize food products, and energy expended to transport the food to our tables is wasted. Still, 34 million Americans are hungry, and more than half of the food pantries run out of food daily!
RLC engages community members to bring excess food from restaurants and other businesses to people who need it in their own communities. Led by a dedicated group of volunteer leaders called Lead Rescuers, volunteers take unsold product at the end of the day that food vendors would otherwise throw out and deliver it to local nonprofit organizations. RLC uses modern and innovative solutions that to date have rescued over 9 million lbs. of food that have fed people, not landfills.
Hunger can be eliminated, because rescuing just 30% of wasted food is enough to feed all people in America experiencing food insecurity, and we as a nation currently only recover about 7%. RLC provides a structure where anyone can join our mission and bring excess food to people in need of healthy meals. Food security is the building block of a healthy and growing community, and RLC believes in a future where food rescue is the most widely used solution to hunger and food waste.
