412 Food Rescue

The organization was founded by Leah Lizarondo and Gisele Barreto Fetterman in March 2015.[8] Lizarondo was inspired by the Free Store, a free clothing outlet in Braddock run by co-founder Fetterman. The Free store gathers surplus goods and distribute them for free to those in need.[5][10]

At the time of founding, food insecurity affected 14.2% of Pittsburgh. However, around 31% of food produced went straight to landfills.[8] The two focused their efforts in solving both those problems by developing a means to bring the food to those who need it.[11] Initially, 412 Food Rescue used the social media platform Facebook to recruit volunteers to transport food between donors and recipients.[12] The organization has grown and shifted from the social media platform to their own application.[13]

412 Food Rescue has virtually eliminated emergency referrals, bringing them down from 5–7 a month to 0 on official reports.[14] The organization has a 98 to 99 percent success rate with food pickups and deliveries.[3] The organization helped furloughed federal employees during the 2019 government shutdown by setting up food distribution centers.[15][16]

412 Food Rescue's reliance on the efforts of thousands of volunteers is made possible through an application launched by the organization in November 2016 called Food Rescue Hero,[17] which is available in both the Google Play Store and the iTunes App Store.[18] Over 7,000 people have downloaded and registered on the application.[12]

A volunteer who is a registered user of the application will receive an alert whenever a prospective donor wishes to donate. Details including the food, the quantity and the distance is made available to volunteer, who provides his or her own vehicle to pick-up the food and deliver it to the non-profit organization that receives it.[8] The application's algorithm matches the available food to the suitable recipient.[5][4]

Hidden Harvest retrieves fresh fruit from unharvested trees, orchards and farms around the city. A map is crowd-sourced highlighting places to collect blackberries, mulberries, etc.[19] Most of these fruits are apples which are donated to partner organizations. A substantial portion of these fruits can no longer be consumed as food which led to an initiative with Wigle Whiskey where the foraged apples are instead turned into pommeau.[20]

The UglyCSA program allowing consumers to purchase fresh produce that has fallen short of cosmetic standards.[3]