Wasted Food — Jonathan Bloom on food waste and how it can be avoided

Technology to the Rescue?

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by

Jonathan
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Love Food, Hate Waste.

Love Technology, Hate Waste?

One question that keeps coming up in my world is whether technology and/or the web can reduce food waste. Certainly, both can, but how?

There’s AmpleHarvest.org, the backyard produce-to-food bank search aid. And then there’s Zero Percent, a site to help restaurants reduce waste via donations or deals. A recent Forbes article touched on the tech topic. And I wrote about it a while back. But I have a sense that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

In 5 or 10 years, the answers on how technology will help avoid food waste will seem obvious (and I have a sense that tech will be implicit in all future waste reduction). But for now there are only guesses. What’s yours?

Comments

2 responses to “Technology to the Rescue?”

  1. John Williamson Avatar
    John Williamson

    Jonathon,

    We’ve had some email exchanges in the past, but if you got to foodrescue.net and click on schedule or volunteer, we have a system designed by Exact Target that allows people to sign up in real time for available “food rescues”. I could see the Zero Percent helping us when people miss, as well as attracting food donors that don’t have daily moderate amounts of waste, rather occasional waste. The key as you probably know is for the food donor to understand that with gas prices, the amount of food has to be worth the volunteers time, otherwise, they feel their time and money would be better spent writing a check to the food pantry.

    A very high percentage of the time, the only solution for regular, daily, MODERATE, perishable, surplus food waste is an army of volunteers using their own vehicles. The well funded large caring organizations in most cases can’t justify allocating the gas, truck, and manpower employee expense required to rescue all the surplus food in their area, unless the pickups are on a large route at regular times.

    Thanks for posting about Zero Percent. We will contact them and see how we might be able to connect. I believe when approaching a potential food donor, the ability to provide regular pickups would be incredibly augmented by an mobile text that would go to all of the local food pantries in the area when a volunteer fails for any reason.

  2. הובלות דירות השוואת מחירים

    הובלות דירות השוואת מחירים…

    … הובלות דירה – הובלות הובלות דירות השוואת מחירים הוא ×›×–×” שבו נוצרת התאמה מלאה עבור צרכיו של כל החפצים הובלות דירות השוואת מחירים. המשמעות היא שהרוב המוחלט של סטודנטים בירושלים זקוק לשירותי ביר… Technology to the Rescue? ……