Interview by Jonathan Kersting
On this episode of TechVibe Fireside Chats with Comcast Business, Jonathan Kersting of the Pittsburgh Technology Council sits down with the team at 412 Food Rescue to celebrate a major milestone and explore the people, volunteers, and technology making it possible.
Discover how an effort coordinated through Facebook grew into Food Rescue Hero, a platform supporting food recovery organizations across the United States and in Canada and South Africa. The conversation goes behind the scenes of the millionth rescue, the logistics of moving unexpected mountains of produce, and the ongoing work to connect donated food with people facing food insecurity.
In this episode:
Whether you’re interested in Pittsburgh innovation, nonprofit technology, sustainability, or helping your neighbors, this episode explores how local action can create a wider impact.
Follow the show for more conversations about Pittsburgh technology and community impact. Want to get involved? Explore volunteering or donating surplus food with 412 Food Rescue.
Transcript:
Hey, Leah just texted me. She was curious if we hit a million rescues yet. And I just went, "We have to be getting close." Yeah. And I go in there and do a little bit of SQL- Ah ... to check and see, you know, kinda where we're at with it. And I look and go, "Oh, we're actually only 30,000, 40,000 out." It wasn't very far out
Jonathan: It's Jonathan Kersting here with the Pittsburgh Technology Council on another episode here of Fireside Chats with Comcast Business. And we actually just had a conversation almost like maybe about a year and a half ago with 412 Food Rescue on Fireside Chats, and you're like, "Well, why would you have them back on?"
Well, a little milestone has happened here. I thought, "You know, you guys need to come back and tell the story," because they have now made their one millionth food rescue. And as somebody that absolutely hates seeing food being thrown away, more importantly, people being hungry, and this solving that problem, I'm pretty stoked, and I think this is an amazing story about [00:01:00] what is built right here in Pittsburgh.
And I got two great guys hanging out with me today. I have Sean Hudson and of course Logan Laizure. I'm so glad to have you guys here in the Huntington Bank Studios because this is where I have the best conversations, and you and the team at 412 have done some amazing work over the years to get to that one million rescues.
Thanks for telling the story with me today, guys. Oh, yeah. I appreciate you. No problem. We can't do it without our volunteers, so huge shout-out to every volunteer- Yeah ... that helped us get there. We can only do so much, but the people in the city that are moving all the stuff every single day- Yeah ... biggest help.
Can't give enough love to everybody that's volunteered with us. Absolutely. I mean, at the Tech Council a couple summers ago, we spent an afternoon there packing some stuff up for the farm share. I saw the activity buzzing through. There was stuff happening during the course of the day, and it was really neat to see, all this positive activity going there to save food and
Meet Sean & Logan
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Jonathan: feed people.
So I was like, man, what a cool organization, and to talk about the millionth rescue's gonna be amazing. Before we do that, I wanna know about your background and why you love hanging out at [00:02:00] 412. So Logan, let's start with you, man. Okay. I started here four and a half years ago. Was working at a different tech startup at the time- Okay
also in logistics but not localized to Pittsburgh, and shifted over. Actually one of my neighbors in the pandemic worked for 412- Oh ... and was extremely curious about why they were leaving every day- Okay. ... when I was laid off for 10 months. And then started volunteering. Something opened up and joined in.
Just wanted to do something that at the end of the day if I gotta work a little extra, if we need to do a little more with the community, whatever, it goes into families being fed- Yeah ... our communities being stronger- Right ... neighborhoods just coming together more often instead of A couple extra dollars in somebody's pocket.
That's so cool. So- Yeah ... it was a great change for me personally. Yeah. Really cool just to get further into the food scene in the city. More volunteering and just I knew my neighbors better, and I think most of us that work here, too. You just kind of- Get folded in to actually trying to help people around you.
100%. And so Shawn, you're coming up on your fifth [00:03:00] year. Yes. Which is so cool. It's been really good. Yeah. Honestly, it's, ... So where do I start? It was ... I've been in human services in general. I worked at a, the large area psychiatric hospital for years.
Went to grad school. Yeah. Just 'cause the mental health system could do a lot more to serve the people that it serves. Right? Known as their, very few people are there on purpose. And you know, that can create a lot of frustration in there. Went to grad school, got a lot more interested in kind of the basic needs of things.
You know, if you go to a psychiatric hospital in particular, a lot of what people are ultimately there for is 'cause they they do have unmet mental health needs. But a lot of times those are- Right ... mostly exacerbated by the fact that they aren't getting things like food or places to stay.
100%. Yeah. Yeah, no. That's ... I love hearing the fact that you guys are really living your passion with this. Because I ... It's not just "I'm doing this 'cause I'm making a great paycheck, and blah, blah." Yeah. But at the end of the day it's like, no, you're doing something that is actually helping people.
Oh, yeah. With something as basic as eating, which is ... And I almost feel sad that we have to have a conversation that people are going hungry in this country, for a country that has so [00:04:00] much. But that's just the facts. Yeah. But the facts are there's organizations like yours out there to try to negate that.
I think you guys have been in business for over a decade now. How long has Food Recovery- Just over, yeah. Just over 10 years now? Yeah. Yeah like a long time. And hitting a million rescues, I'm thinking you've fed a lot of people. Was it June we posted the jo- m- the job posting I, I ultimately applied for five years ago?
It was kind of dream job posting. I saw it. I saw how many rescues we ... It was, you know, learning the database scheme, all of that. Director of Data and Analytics. I went through it, and at the time we had 250,000, just under 250,000 rescues. So just in that short time that I have been here we have- In- okay
quadrupled. So it's done a big, a sharp hockey stick on there. Oh, yeah. Very cool. One
From Pittsburgh to the World
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Jonathan: thing I want people to know as they're watching this is that this is something that's not just in Pittsburgh. The technology for the app was developed here in Pittsburgh. And there's a cool story about how it all started as a Facebook page in order to keep- Yes
food from going away. But the fact that people in other cities are using the app in order to help save [00:05:00] food and feed people in their cities, which I think is really cool. So I feel like what's happening here in Pittsburgh is being scaled out to help people everywhere. That to me is pretty magical. Oh, yeah.
That's kind of, a part of Food Rescue Hero, like our expansion of the platform. Yeah. That's what I do. I do our strategy operations for our partners- ... across the country. We're also in Canada and South Africa now. Wait, back up. South Africa? Yeah. No way. Yes. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. Okay.
I love this. Yeah. All of South Africa, I think, has been set up by this food rescue organization called Nosh. Which is a really interesting logistics challenge because not a ton of cell service or internet or physical addresses generally. Oh, interesting. Okay. Like a byproduct of the districting systems and, like, all that other- Yeah
the problems with apartheid generally. All that stuff, yeah. And going past that for the last, you know, 40, 50 years and trying to fix that with food recovery. So they mainly do more of a fleet structure- Okay ... which is, like- That's cool. I like that ... a couple [00:06:00] drivers with big trucks getting-
you know, canned goods or big homogenous loads. Yeah, if they're taking stuff that people are gonna eat Down for it, man. Oh, yeah. I think that it's... How cool. I'm just thinking to myself I'm thinking when Leah Luzrondo founded this back in the day as a Facebook page, thinking that "Okay we're gonna try to help people locally here do this."
And at one point, like many years later, that South Africa would be using- Right ... this technology. That's why she's always been one of my favorite people here in the Pittsburgh area, and it's great to see her work continue in the hands of you guys. Yeah. And of course, your new leader that you've had, the new CEO that you've had for a few years now, which is really cool.
She's building on some great work there, which is fantastic. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Keep trying to get to more people in the city proper generally. But also, yeah globally starting to target but more so nationally just trying to expand. We just got into Hawaii, actually. Oh, my. So just starting with them.
Also- ... a lot of pineapple rescues? I'm not sure. Honestly, it's gonna be a- again, another odd logistical challenge. I think they're starting [00:07:00] one island at a time. Okay. But then if they're going to move food from island to island, do they start with ferry work? Right. Do they do localized boats?
Yeah. Do they... How does that work? Is it volunteer-based? So- Absolutely ... I just, once again, I'm thinking like this is literally spreading around the world. Yeah. You know? That's so amazing to me. It's super fun. This is what I spend a good chunk of my time doing and trying to like think- Perfect
through these things, too. So it's... I'm very happy when people are like, "We have no idea how we're gonna do it." It's like, "Great." We're gonna figure it out, man. Oh, let's do it. That's so fun ... a really weird puzzle, so yeah. I love that. It's a very weird puzzle. So I first became... i've always known about the company as it's
Becoming a Food Rescue Hero
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Jonathan: grown.
Been a member of the Tech Council forever, and then I remember like during the pandemic, I was like, you know, " I wanna be a food rescue hero." So I got the app on my phone, so I was ready to take some loads of bagels to people wherever they need, you know? Oh, nice. I'm ready to optimize myself, and the app is just super simple to use.
The only problem I had was it was so popular I couldn't rescue anything- Yeah. ... because anytime something was in my area, someone nabbed it, which made me actually feel pretty good, 'cause I was like, "Wait a second. People are really, glomming onto [00:08:00] this," which I thought- ... was fantastic that I was being beaten out to rescue whatever it was that needed to be rescued.
But, you know. So at some point I kinda was like I think it's being taken care of without me, but if ever you need my help, let me know. I'm happy to sign back up." Oh, yeah. I mean, we will take more volunteers every day of the week. Okay. Please volunteer. Okay,
Calling All Volunteers & Restaurants
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Jonathan: good to know. It's really helpful.
Okay. But I think really if we can get anything out to a bunch of people in the city- Yeah, tell us ... if you're a restaurant and you wanna donate- please donate Okay, good to know we have wait lists of nonprofits 'cause there's just so much need Yeah depending, like community to community.
And it's slower to get people to donate food than any other part of the process Really? Okay We need volunteers to move it. We have great donor partners, absolutely fantastic connections- ... locally and with the rest of our partners nationally, but that's always something we could do more with.
Okay. So if you're a restaurant out there- Yeah, please call us ... remember, like you got a lot of stuff left over. And it could be like rolls, it could be steaks, it could be really anything as long as it's We will try to get it out. Yeah. But- Well, they'll try to get it. I know 'cause certain things, the way things are cooked or w- the way things [00:09:00] keep, not everything can be rescued.
Connect, yeah. But the idea is ask. Yeah. We'll let you know. You can go to our website. You don't even have to talk to us on the phone. Okay. You can enter in a donation- Nice ... and we'll let you know. Okay. You can text our main dispatch line. We can give all of that info too. Awesome. But yeah, always looking for it.
What's cool about the... When we do run out of rescues it always feels weird probably if you're a volunteer, but I would say some- we're like 85, 90%, like recurring. Yeah. Oh yeah, no, I just looked this up. Okay. 90% of our rescues happen every week. So they are recurring, usually a weekly schedule, so every Tuesday- Nice
from this Giant Eagle. , So there's some people that know that every Tuesday- Yep. Yeah ... at 10:00 I'm swinging by- Yep ... and picking this up and taking it here. Like- Many. Many of our super volunteers. The ones that are claimed, same volunteer. The ones- Yeah ... that aren't they, I mean, they can also request- Of course
a substitute, but if they, if it isn't claimed, the template, it will publish the day of and it'll go out- Someone will grab it ... someone will grab it ... and then take it. That is really cool. Yeah. Are there any parts of town where there's more need than others to get people to get on the app and make those rescues?
Or- Yeah. Okay. [00:10:00] Absolutely. Do you wanna talk about like the CNI? I can get into that. I'll talk about just like the volunteer part very quickly and then- Sure ... it does get into, you know, need in general. Yeah. But volunteers we found it's the Bell Vernon area. I don't know if you've ever been out there.
I've been there, absolutely. I went to undergrad at Cal U. Okay. And so, you know, that's where we got our groceries. If you've ever been to like that Walmart, it is impossible to get in and out of. Okay. So it's tricky, and nothing in, you know, a lot... As soon as you get out of the city, nothing is particularly close together in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
So there's no good way to get the food from the Giant Eagle or the Bell Vernon out there to where it's going. ... There are places in the area that can take it. They're kind of far. They're a little remote. If there are people in Bell Vernon who- Okay ... would like to take that on. We're putting a call out there for Bell Vernon folks, if you're seeing this.
Bell Vernon, Van Essen, that kind of area in general. Too bad it wasn't Bell Vernon, 'cause I'd volunteer. I'm in the East End where every single- Yep ... thing is- Oh, yeah ... wiped out like that. Yeah, very, v- yeah, that one is always, You gotta you actually have to get up pretty early in the morning to, to claim that.
Exactly. [00:11:00] 'Cause they're usually not out for very long. We post a notification before- I'm glad to hear that though. That's what's cool is, man, the East End shows up. Oh, yeah. Big time. Oh in addition- And now our office is there. Okay. Yeah, it does, it made it a lot easier. We were with the East End Cooperative Ministries for a while doing a g- a cooperative workspace with them.
Great. And then recently transitioned to an office in Millville, but- Yeah ... on top of that area, we are doing a Washington County expansion too. Yes. Are you? Awesome. So anybody that listens in- Okay ... Washington County keep, download it, keep an eye out. Yes. We're looking for volunteers. We're trying to expand into some of those- Good to know
further counties outside of Allegheny. That's what I wanna spread the word on, 'cause my thing is yeah, the more people that know, the more opportunity to keep that food from going to a landfill, and more people that get to eat. I keep talking about the eating side of things, 'cause I like I do not wanna see anybody
Food Waste & Climate Impact
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Jonathan: going hungry.
But I also know that when food goes into landfills that's not good for landfills. It creates methane gas, and methane- yeah ... is the worst greenhouse gas out there. And so the less of that's going up and the more that's going into people's bellies- Yeah ... better yet for me. So that's where- Further up the waste stream.
Yes. He has this pretty good graphic out on [00:12:00] it. But the further up the waste stream you can capture it, the more impact it'll actually have. 'Cause if it goes to even composting, like 80, 90% of that greenhouse gas still happens. Exactly. And then- Right ... but people eat it, ultimately there's a little bit less consumption, a little bit less production.
Yep. It actually cuts, not 100%, but you know, into it. Yeah. What always stifles me is, like, when I think about how hard it is for me to grow tomatoes, okay? I can slave all summer, and because I got bad sunlight. I'm really good at watering and stuff. But anyhow, I can't make enough freaking tomatoes to make a jar of salsa, for crying out loud.
And yet I can see vats of salsa being tossed because they're going somewhere. Yeah. I'm thinking to myself, I think about the energy and the commitment it takes to grow enough tomatoes- Right ... to make that, and it's just gonna go into the garbage. That to me is sacrilege. Oh, yeah. It makes things more expensive.
But- Yeah, exactly. All the way around. Locally especially. Shout out Grounded PGH and Grow Pittsburgh- Okay ... if you have some problems- Those are good ... or want some free pH soil testing- ... or to share [00:13:00] with any of their tools. Yeah. You can hit them up for gardening. Great local organizations. Good to know.
Yeah. You guys are educating me here. I love this. This is super awesome. I love to garden. Okay. That's the other side of this for me- Okay ... is, like- Nice ... okay, all of my food waste goes into compost, which I get into soil or however I use it. Nice. But there's a lot of good organizations doing exactly that, helping us out, you know, just further
The App Origin Story
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Jonathan: removing it- Yeah
from just a straight waste stream, which is great. Absolutely. Absolutely. So the app works very well. It's been very popular. It started from a Facebook page. Yes. Sean, tell us a little bit of the story. Yeah. And especially I'd love to know as when you, joined the organization five years ago, how then you've seen this dramatic uptick.
Oh, yeah. So it was, It started, you know, after Facebook, but- Yeah ... we hadn't had the app for very long, and we hadn't had the app very long by when I f- had first heard of it either. So it was originally Leia. People that she could kind of corral- Exactly ... would talk to people who had extra food, and then they would try to get it claimed.
They would call around for places that could take it. If you've spoken to Leia, she's very well-connected. [00:14:00] She's good at talking to people. She knows a few people it seems like. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it's weird. Yeah. And always has. So she could always find somewhere to get it, but obviously, you know, it's getting people to do it.
So they posted it on Facebook. are their first employee. Jen also was h- part of that. She was very early on. Shout out Jen England. Yes. Yeah. I remember Jen. Yes. And still very active in the food recovery scene where she and I are on the board of the National Food Recovery Association together.
So they were just posting those, they were getting claimed, and a- a lot of food was moving, but obviously, you know, scale is the problem. Eventually they got ahold of Greg Hopkins, who's on our board now, and Amish other people that they brought in to, to code up an app, pretty simple one.
And I came in right 2021. So the app, such as it is, kind of only existed for a couple of years at that point. Exactly. We had a database since '18. Yeah. I mean, I remember when you guys released the app. I remember doing a story on it. It was kind of exciting to be like- Yeah ... this work is now being turned to something that you can...
And it was kinda novel at the time. You're like, "Oh, I can open this on my phone?" Like- Oh, yeah. Yeah ... it's yes. 'Cause not everyone was doing that at the moment. Yeah. And it was [00:15:00] a lot of, it was a huge deal, 'cause yeah, before they were posting it on... They were the you know, Jen and Leia were doing their best to know what they were.
They were getting pictures sent to their phones via Messenger. Exactly. Writing it down on a Google Sheet. I do this like they were using pen. Typing it down into a Google Sheet, and then doing the best they can. So there, there is a collection of old Google Sheets that, you know, you can still go through and find all the old items, who moved it where which is always a, a fun trip back.
We have most of that data in the app now. I wonder what the first rescue was. I'd be curious to know. That's what- I'm not gonna put you on the spot. That's what- But I'm thinking to myself- Gonna look it up. I'm thinking it's gonna be bagels. I'm just saying. It's a popular one. There's a lot, there's a lot of bagels.
A lot of bagels. Yeah. I keep going. I digress. I think the most, I think the biggest restaurant that donates for us i- well, the one who does the most donations in Pittsburgh anyway, is probably Einstein. Could you- For a restaurant. Restaurant? Yeah. Yeah, probably. If it isn't them, it's, they're up there.
Okay. Shout out Le Gourmandine and Allegro. Yeah. And the rest of our other fantastic bakery partners. But yeah, them or Giant Eagle [00:16:00] in their bakery section. Oh, yeah. Oh, well, yeah. I mean- If you count bakery. Yeah. Yeah. And of course like the local ones who... Donating a lot of stuff. It's the margins of restaurants, right?
Absolutely. Such I- it's such cool stuff. So y- it comes this app, people start using it. You also have the idea of saying that
?
Jonathan: this is an app that we can then sell into the market, that people can take this app- ... and use it and scale it in their cities, which we're seeing in places like Hawaii and- yeah
South Africa, for crying out loud. I think there's a little black and gold going on now- ... around the world 'cause of what you guys are doing when it comes to
Chasing the Millionth Rescue
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Jonathan: saving food and everything. And then I think once you've got the app really strumming, you say you really start seeing this uptick. Yeah. Yeah.
And you're like, wait a second, you start seeing a lot of rescues, and it was maybe a little while ago where maybe you had a call with Leia- Yeah ... and she was "There was this talk about a million rescues maybe happening." Yeah. It was like- That we were approaching maybe a milestone. Someone should check this.
What's the story behind that? So we have Tuesdays we have our product core day, so all the people who work on the tech side- Okay ... are in or at least, you know, are [00:17:00] into a, a long meeting, kind of cover the state of things what we're working on, what we plan to work on. And we we're just sitting there talking in between, and
Alyssa Chaludowsky, our current CEO- Yes ... kind of knocked on the door and goes, "Hey- Leigh just texted me. She was curious if we hit a million rescues yet. And I just went, "You know, we have to be, right? We have to be getting close." Yeah. And I go in there and do a little bit of SQL real quick- A little SQL
just to just to check and see, you know, kinda where we're at with it. And I look and go, oh, we're actually only, I think at the time 30,000, 40,000 out. It wasn't very far out. Yeah. It happens in, you know, eight weeks. You're like, "We're a few months away" or something like that, right? But, yeah. Okay.
So I was like, "We have to be less than three months out." Okay. So that, kind of the, the planning had to start right away. Was there like a countdown ticker going on- Yes. Oh, yeah ... where it's okay. Yeah. That's how I knew it was happening. That was very annoying. Sean, you're like, "Logan created a spreadsheet," and I was like, "Check this out."
I got assigned a spreadsheet with a [00:18:00] tracker just to my email that was like, countdown to a million. And then every day it would update, and I was like, "Cool. We're close." How much fun was that, like being able to watch that kinda get closer and closer? Oh, it's great. Sean's a wizard with all that stuff.
Awesome. So it's always fun to see where you're just like, "Oh, nice. Okay." Yeah. Oh my goodness, that's so awesome, man. Yeah. This is so exciting. Okay, so you're seeing these things tick down. Who was the one millionth? Barb Dorsher, I think. Okay. Bob Dorsher? Barb. Barb Dorsher. Barb. Yeah. She's great.
She, our our ops team know her super well. Sh- that was her 510th rescue, so she'd been doing this for a minute. Oh my goodness, wow, 'cause she's a pro, man. Yeah. She knew what she was doing. Okay. We, there was actually a little bit of confusion on ex- like exactly the moment it would happen because she...
It's a week- it was a weekly rescue. And it was from a GetGo. They finished really early. But, you know, I'd seen that the 100th rescue had been claimed.
Or the millionth rescue. Millionth rescue. I'm only off by a factor of 10,000. I can't do math that fast. I was like, "A lot," but yeah. That's what I'm saying. He's our data guy. He's really good, yeah. So she she finished it [00:19:00] early, but we s- we had s- we saw that it had been claimed at 7:00. It was already...
You know, it had already been marked as claimed, and a lot of rescues were, already were, so we were like, "All right, so whichever one moves to completed- Gets the million ... in this one is gonna be the one that counts." Okay. And we had to kinda look through it because it, we were expecting it to come right after 9:00.
Because that was the start time of that rescue. Oh, gotcha. And then 8:53 rolls in. And I'm just, I'm like- Yeah, I like the timeline on this ... like hitting refresh constantly. Look, he's get- he's getting very exact here. 8:53. That's what I mean. We were getting nervous. He looked it up. I don't know.
Yeah, just F5 on my laptop over and over again. I mean, when we use a, a, a Windows machine. And did that a bunch, and, you know, ticked over. It was, like, 10 over, so I had to go through and then look at the list, and then sort ascending or descending, and then just kind of work my way down and go, "Oh, she actually finished."
little early. But yeah, no, and that was the millionth rescue. Cool. Do you know what you rescued? Oh, I need to look. No worries. It was a weekly one, so it was- Okay ... it was a gecko. It's mostly prepared stuff from there. [00:20:00] Gotcha. Yeah, they have the stuff that you pick up there, so there's probably stuff that was like- Yeah, she had a photo- Okay
but it was kind of of the back of her car and bags, so I don't know exactly- Nice ... what was in it, but- Very cool. We need a copy of that photo if you have it. Yes I'll get it sent. That'd be so awesome because- she will not mind, but- that is so cool. Like I said, that- Hopefully. ... that to me is amazing.
I'm thinking about a million. Man, that's a lot. Ugh. And to think that was accomplished as fast as you guys were able to do that is pretty amazing. So along the way, you've had to have rescued some interesting food
Memorable Food Rescues
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Jonathan: items. Yes. Quantities of food items. Yeah, constantly. Can we nerd out on some fun- Yeah
rescues that are like, I didn't realize there were that many things that need to be rescued or something like that. Lay one on me, Sean. What's a good one? We got the, the big one. Okay. But what was it? 2024, there was this weird s- avocado summer that just- Oh, yeah ... everyone, including us, but everyone- Was it called the summer of guac or something like that?
It could have been. A lot of guacamole was made. Okay. Okay, so where's this going? Tell us. That was a weird one. I was working our l- dispatch [00:21:00] and logistics for that. Okay. But it was kind of a constant stream in the summer of somebody being like, "I have 25 palettes of avocados." Which if you like, have eaten an avocado ever, you're like, "Okay, my house can handle a couple- Yeah.
at a time." And they're like, "Here's several hundred a couple other hundred times." Right. And so just working through trying to figure out who can take what, and being realistic with people when you're like, "I have, you know, 30 minutes to make a decision- Yeah ... before they go onto something else." But y- they'll go to some organization, right?
Right. At the end of the day, hopefully. Okay, yeah. But it's still like- I placed eight of the 30 pallets or whatever. Okay. We'll try and figure out the rest. If you wanna dump them in a parking lot- ... or we'll talk to some of our other people and see if they can get trucks, or maybe we'll match a truck up, and just trying to do that.
That was a wild one. That's pretty awesome. See, I would've been saying like, "Does anyone have a lot of chips?" Right. That need rescuing? We can get that. Now we can make something happen here. [00:22:00] So we get a lot of chips too- ... but in the amount that you would need, like a pallet of avoc- a pallet of any- is a lot
produce is a crazy amount of produce. Yeah, it's more than any one human- Like a ton- Yeah ... ish. Yeah. Something like that pretty much. Right, exactly. Well, for avocados it's probably on the higher end per pallet. Yeah, they're dense. They're- Yeah, 'cause they're thick. Yeah. They're like they're dense.
Okay. So you've rescued pallets of avocados. Oh, we could go through. We could make guacamole- That's ... with all of the giant- I can see ... homogenous loads. We get a ton in the summer from some local produce distributors. And we're also partnered with Gordon Food Service, US Food and System- Sure.
Yeah ... a bunch of those places. Great. But shout out Sun Fresh Foods in the Strip. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Aren't they great? Fantastic distributor. Okay. Great people. But we get the end of tomatoes a lot. Oh ... and so in the summer all of our very standard volunteers know- ... there'll be like a random day- they're waiting for it
of the week in the summer where we'll put on, you know, 60 rescues of 10 boxes at a time, or a couple pallets at a time. Be like, "Hey, can... If you have a pickup truck," we're just calling everybody that has a pickup truck. Like- [00:23:00] Yeah. Pick up ... "You got a, a free couple minutes here? We're gonna put a pallet on your truck.
Is that cool?" A pallet to me. Yeah. We get a lot of that. Fruit weirdly enough, grocery stores I think more often than not we get the stuff that isn't as common to cook with, which makes sense. Okay. But like- Yeah ... trader Joe's and Whole Foods and stuff like that, we'll get like eggplants- ... or what do they, what do people call them here?
Cantaloupe. Cantaloupe. Yeah. My brain goes to mushmelon. Yeah. Okay. Mushmelon. Yeah. Yeah, okay. But- "What are you saying about cantaloupes?" Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Oh, my bad. But no we'll get a lot of stuff like that, and then for a while when we get some stranger things, we'll try and reach out to our partners and be like, "This is how you would make it.
This is how you would tell somebody how to cook this thing-" Right ... quickly." 'Cause it's not very often we're, you know, in a regular sort of food distribution from a food bank or us- Right ... or another connected partner where they're like, "Here's 800 pounds of eggplant." Yeah. And like- Is that something you could, like- But, like-
call up a local farm and say, "Would your cows like to eat eggplant?" Or something like that? That's it. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. We definitely do that. It is last thing that we wanna do. Of [00:24:00] course. To the people first animals good second. Yeah. Composting- Right ... anything else- Gotcha ... like that afterwards.
Makes total sense. But yeah, we've used farms for lots of things that we'll get that are just too far gone. Absolutely. Anybody that works in restaurants knows, like, sliced tomatoes, sliced mushrooms- Nice ... everything else like that. Yeah. And then we'll get a half pallet and you're like, "Oh." Nobody's eating these.
Yeah, exactly. Okay. Fantastic . Yeah. Thank you. Breweries are great for bread that no one wants. 'Cause they can go through a lot of bread, so. I believe it. No,
The PNC Park Bun Rescue
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Jonathan: absolutely. So rumor has it you once had a pretty spectacular rescue at PNC Park. Yes. Oh, yeah. Sean, tell me about that one. Yeah, so we our, at the time, Becca our relationships manager wanted to just start an initiative to work with the stadiums, and got ahold of PNC Park.
And they you know, it's all restaurants up there, and you know, margins, so they can't always give everything, but they always have a lot a lot of buns. Buns ... 'cause no one went out. Which is fine. So they have
[00:25:00] countless hotdog buns, and I think to date we've rescued about 80,000 pounds of them.
Oh my goodness. So- So- ... baseball season, home games, it's a busy time. It's a very- It's, I'm just- ... it's a really good rescue, though ... thinking about 80,000 pounds. So I did a quick little s- little chat with what this means, and that's 700,000 buns. I'm just- Yeah ... gonna leave it at that. But that's a lot of buns.
That's all I can say. I hope those buns were met up with some veggie dogs. Probably. There's a good chance. And then that's how they found their final fate. Yeah, absolutely. But I digress. Yeah. Some did make it to a brewery project. Nice ... which is great. They do pro- they usually do a profit share if they do upcycling- Yeah
Which is rad, 'cause it really, it's really good for- That's so cool ... them getting cheap ingredients, us getting a little bit of money, a lot of awareness. And then other, you know, a lot of that was, you know, it was perfectly good buns, and people got them. Yeah. At the end of the day, 412 has just been making Pittsburgh proud doing the work that you guys have been doing.
You're literally you're saving people's lives. You're keeping [00:26:00] people from starving literally. It means a lot to me when I hear that type of work, and I just think it's awesome you're using technology- Oh ... to do that. You are scaling this around the world. What's not to
Data, Analytics & the Future
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Jonathan: like? And I just think this is such a cool story, and I can't believe we've got to talk about your one millionth rescue today.
Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we're doing cool stuff every day. Always doing new things. Our new director of engineering, Juan, is very forward-thinking. We're trying to be more geographically aware, so obviously, we want food to go where it will be used. Yeah. We, there, there's a lot of I...
How many recipients do we have at a given time, Logan? Something like 400, 500. Somewhere in there ... there's a lot of- Just locally. Yeah. Somewhere around there. Oh, yeah. Just here. And that's tremendous mental- Yeah ... overhead. We ha- our dispatch team is amazing, but they there's a lot of- Knowing the area that you can't keep all that going.
So we're trying to be more geographically aware. Great. We're taking public data to ideally divert... not really divert. Sort of think of it as we have the CNI and suggested nonprofits. Right. So, like, when people enter the data, they get some [00:27:00] suggestions. It's sort of like a, like an aim assist for where the food goes.
Gotcha. I'm sure someone, some Gen Z-er plays Fortnite. And we'll see this maybe. But yeah, that, that narrows the list of places to start with, which is great. There's still a person in the loop, so, you know, there's no decisions being made for you. Absolutely. Yeah. We try to be very aware that this is food going to people.
Of course. And we know with that we can say, "Hey, if you don't know everything about this, we can tell you that the median income in this community is very low. We know the SNAP participation's pretty high." That's great. "We know this is a food desert." But- See, this is what I love. You're using more analytics in order to kinda put a finer point on what you're doing to really make sure it gets where it needs to go.
Phew. Well- It's an amazing story, man, all the way around. It helps a lot, especially when we're targeting different places or just trying to spread the food wider, especially with- ... the larger need and federal cuts to nonprofit funding just generally- For sure ... in the States. Right. And then w- here locally as well.
So, Sean and all of his great GIS work and the work on the Community Needs In-Index and everything else, being able to compile that, and then our dispatchers [00:28:00] work extremely hard to make sure- Right ... that we're doing everything- ... with the people in mind, with advocacy in mind. But this just making it a little easier making it easier for our partners that might have more turnover or- Exactly.
Yeah ... yeah. That's what it's all about. Just anybody that might have just moved into a city and gotten a job at a- Surely ... a rescue organization that's partnered with us can go in there and be like, "Okay, this is an area of food apartheid, and they have a strong need, and m- maybe we get more food to this area, or we- Yeah
make an extra 10 calls to see if we can get more." To make sure you can get more going over there. It's great work. Yeah.
Closing & Thanks
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Jonathan: now see what you reach a million rescues it's just really gratifying to have these types of stories happen here.
Oh, yeah. And I have to thank Studios guys. I can't thank you enough for taking the time out of your day redirecting food and talking to me about it. It's been a true pleasure, guys. Oh, no. Yeah ... thanks for having us. Absolutely. Thanks for giving us a platform to be able to elevate it even further. I mean, again huge shout-out to all our volunteers, all our donor partners, all our- Definitely
nonprofit partners, all anybody that gives us any extra funding- ... to be able to get more people- Yep ... to expand the technology. Solidarity [00:29:00] forever with all of our communities and continuing to help in that way. So really appreciate the chance to talk about it. Nah, great having you guys here. Logan, Sean, you guys are the best.
Making Pittsburgh proud, 412- Yeah ... Food Rescue. Got deets here, of course, in the liner notes, and I cannot wait to see everybody here on the next one 'cause these are the types of stories that just get me out of bed every single day, and there's so many of them. This one really hits home for me, 100%. Guys, you're the best.
I'll see you on the next one. This has been Jonathan Kersting with the Pittsburgh Technology Council and, of course, TechVibe.