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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Goodr Delivers Groceries and Surplus Food to Hungry Students, Seniors in Atlanta

“Hold on, I have to get my credit card.” Jasmine Crowe, CEO of Goodr, was grocery shopping in the middle of our call earlier today. She was at the store not stocking up her own pantry but buying grocery staples for one of the dozens of families that are using Goodr’s expanded program to get fresh food during this tumultuous time. 

Goodr is an Atlanta-based startup providing the logistics needed to redistribute surplus food from large businesses (think: Coca Cola, Chick-fil-A, etc) and to non-profits feeding the hungry. And with the coronavirus outbreak shutting down schools and, consequently, taking away free lunch from students, Goodr is stepping up to make sure that kids in the Atlanta area still have healthy food to eat.

To feed students, Goodr is working with school cafeterias which are still preparing packaged meals. The company picks up and delivers these meals to designated apartment drop-off zones in areas where many students live. They’re on track to deliver meals to over 40,000 students in the Atlanta school district.

Separately, Goodr is introducing another new service to drop off groceries to families who can’t afford to (or aren’t physically able to) shop themselves, or can’t make it to food pantries. “It’s like Instacart, but it’s free,” Crowe explained to me. Since the grocery delivery service doesn’t rely on surplus food, Goodr pays for the groceries through individual sponsorships (you can do it too, if you like).

In addition to grocery and student meal drop-off, Goodr is also delivering fully prepared meals cooked by partner chefs to seniors that might be hesitant to venture out and purchase food, or don’t have the financial ability to do so. Crowe said that the seniors have the option to ask that the food be dropped off outside their door to reduce the risk of contamination. Finally, the company is increasing the frequency of Goodr’s pop-up surplus food grocery stores.

These emergency initiatives are all happening on top of Goodr’s current surplus food deliveries from offices to nonprofits. “It’s still business as usual,” Crowe told me.

To increase their delivery capacity Crowe said that Goodr has hired 10 new drivers. They try to hire drivers that were recently laid off from their jobs and pay them $20 per hour. Crowe told me that Goodr uses the Google Maps Paperboy API to direct drivers through the most efficient routes. Currently, one driver can deliver groceries to six or seven families in an hour and a half. I’m from Atlanta and, knowing the traffic situation there, that’s pretty incredible.

Goodr typically gets a lot of its donations from offices and restaurants, many of which are closed or in the process of closing. Crowe told me that right now, they’re sourcing “a little bit from everywhere.” The company is still getting donations from some food partners, like Mercedes-Benz and Coca-Cola, and is also taking food from companies that are going out of business and clearing out their fridges and pantries. 

Crowe doesn’t know how long those donations will last, however, or how long Goodr will be able to keep the lights on. Like many other food companies, it is not immune to the struggles that come with our new COVID-19 reality.

Nonetheless, Crowe said they’ll keep doing what they can and paying their team for as long as they can. “I’m a believer in good Karma,” Crowe told me as she finished her grocery shop. Then she had to go deliver the food to an Atlanta family, or senior, or student, and do it all over again.

Goodr Launched Free “Pop-Up Grocery” Store Featuring Surplus Food for MLK Day

In anticipation for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Atlanta-based startup Goodr launched a service project to reduce food waste and feed the hungry in MLK’s home city.

Goodr has partnered with the Atlanta Hawks to launch a “Pop-Up Grocery” event in tandem with the Hawks’ court dedication at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Recreation and Aquatic Center in downtown ATL (h/t Black Enterprise news). Over the weekend, roughly 100 local seniors came out to take advantage of the pop-up, which features free surplus food (like fresh produce, deli products and bread) from Goodr’s Atlanta grocery partners.

This isn’t the first pop-up grocery event from Goodr, which uses blockchain to redistribute excess food from businesses and venues to non-profits which provide food to those struggling with hunger. In a statement to The Spoon, Goodr’s CEO Jasmine Crowe said “Pop-up free grocery stores are a signature Goodr event, and one of our favorite ways to bring food to the gathering spaces and even the doorsteps of people who need it the most.” This particular “store” was only open this past Thursday, to kick off the Hawk’s MLK Day programming, but Crowe said that one of their goals for 2019 is to pop-up in a new place every two weeks.

In this job, you see a lot of companies leveraging technology for technology’s sake. Sometimes it’s really nice to read about a company that’s tackling widespread issues in the food system — like food waste and hunger — head-on, especially on a holiday dedicated to remember the legacy of a man who fought for equity and justice.

When we spoke to Crowe in preparation for this year’s Smart Kitchen Summit, she told us that Goodr has plans to be in 20 cities by 2020. Hopefully that will mean a lot more pop-up grocery stores, a lot less food waste, and a lot more people with access to fresh, healthy food.

Plentiful is a Free, SMS-Based Reservation System for Food Pantry Visitors

This time of year most of us, at least in the U.S., are focused on seeing friends and family, giving thanks, and eating as much turkey, pie, and mashed potatoes as humanly possible. But for millions of Americans, getting access to food is a struggle which can entail long wait times at food pantries and an unpredictable selection.

Plentiful, a project within the New York City Food Assistance Collaborative, is working to make the process of visiting a food pantry a little easier for everyone involved. Funded by the Helmsley Charitable Trust, the free software tool lets New Yorkers search local food pantries and make a reservation, so they can get served quickly without excessive time spent in line.

A simple feature, to be sure — but apparently the results have been dramatic. According to Bryan Moran, technical lead for Plentiful, the tool reduces the average wait time from an hour and a half to just a few minutes. Users can also easily look up nearby food pantries and get accurate, up-to-date operating hours, and give feedback on a particular pantry’s selection. On the flip side, pantries can use Plentiful’s service to see upcoming reservations and plan ahead to make sure they have enough food for the day.

Plentiful is available through an Android-based app with maps, but the software works with any phone that can text message. Users just have to text the word “FOOD” to PANTRY, answer a few basic questions, and they’ll be able to book a reservation to visit a food pantry in their area.

Not an English speaker? No problem — Plentiful works in nine languages. If a client begins answering Plentiful’s text questions in, say, Bengali, the software will recognize the change and translate all future communication into that language.

Plentiful also functions as a data collection tool, tracking which zip codes food pantry users are coming from, where they’re going to, and how frequently they visit each pantry. “This is the first time we have unduplicated results across cities about people who are using food pantries,” said Moran, “It’s much better than a paper sign-in sheet,” he added, which is how food pantries have historically tracked their users.

Since its launch with three pantries in 2016, Plentiful has grown to work with 200 locations in the New York City area. Moran told me that, in any given month, they see roughly 40,000 – 50,000 users on the app. As of now, Plentiful is only available in NYC, but their team is working to expand to more locations soon.

Eventually, Moran hopes that Plentiful can help tackle food waste, as well. He told me that they see an opportunity to integrate Plentiful data into the food procurement side of the pantry system, so they can optimize for less food waste. They’re even looking into creating a pathway to help people with excess food share meals.

At the Spoon, we’re always on the lookout for smart, simple solutions to solve big problems in the food system. It’s time to give thanks that Plentiful seems to be doing just that.

FoodShot Global Launches Fund to Land Food Moonshots

We know that there is no shortage of food-related accelerators helping get the next generation of startups off the ground. But FoodShot Global, a new investment platform that launched today, doesn’t just want to get startups off the ground: it wants them to aim for the moon.

FoodShot Global is a consortium of venture funds, banks, corporations, universities and foundations including Rabobank, UC Davis, The Rockefeller Foundation, and Generation Investment Management, looking to fund “Moonshots for Food.” FoodShot Global has a $10 million fund that will be investing in innovative businesses in the form of either equity or debt financing. Those companies accepted into the main FoodShot Global program will also receive industry expertise, mentorship and other resources available through the FoodShot partner network.

At the same time, FoodShot Global will have a separate “Groundbreaker Prize” every year, awarding $500,000 in philanthropic capital to researchers, social entrepreneurs and advocates working in a specific field in food or agriculture. This year’s challenge is “Innovating Soil 3.0,” and they are looking for science and tech projects that “address the crisis of soil deterioration.”

From the press announcement:

Through Innovating Soil 3.0, FoodShot Global aims to identify breakthrough solutions that create the new soil operating system. Though soil began as a mixture of organic matter and minerals that enabled agriculture to take root (Soil 1.0), the advent of synthetic fertilizers and industrialized farming created a soil system (Soil 2.0) that improved global food security but wasn’t designed to maintain soil nutrient integrity, resulting in yields that have not continued to increase at the rate to meet the demands of a growing global population and a resource-constrained planet. A new soil system, Soil 3.0, is essential to nourish and sustain the planet as a whole. Focus areas for the Innovating Soil 3.0 Challenge can include input efficiency, reduced deforestation, improved crop resistance, and carbon sequestration. To develop a 21st century soil operating system, FoodShot is seeking innovators tapping into advances in biology, genetics, and chemistry, and solutions that lean on big data, smart sensors, blockchain and robotics to set the framework for a global food system that can sustainably and equitably produce healthy food for all.

Applications for either investment from FoodShot or the Innovating Soil 3.0 prize are due December 1, 2018, and can be submitted through FoodShot’s website.

The FoodShot website aims “To feed 10 billion people by 2050.” Hopefully finding and funding promising moonshots will give everyone on the planet a shot at more healthy living way before then.