Three women smiling in a kitchen.

Pilot 1: UNE Dining Hall and Biddeford Community Food Rescue

August 8, 2023 Solution 2 Pilot

Goals

  • To connect surplus food that is available with local people that need it.

Methodology 

  1. University of New England (UNE) Dining, powered by Parkhurst, donated their surplus food.
  2. Through volunteers from UNE’s Hunger Committee, this surplus food was then delivered to the Bon Appetit Community Meal Program.
  3. Throughout this process, the volunteers used a software program created by Food Rescue U.S.
    1. They logged all of the food rescued in this program
    2. Through this program, volunteers can also sign up and find an available food rescue to participate in.

Results 

Through a volunteer food rescue program, Biddeford residents were able to rescue 270 pounds of good and edible food for their community. Through only 9 total food rescues at this brand-new feeding site, they were able to rescue 175 meals— preventing food waste and connecting food with people that need it (See graphs for data).

2021 Food Rescue report graph showing that in November of 2021, one food rescue delivered 25 meals, and in December of 2021, 8 food rescues delivered 150 meals

Figure 1: Rescue report for the 2021 Food Rescue MAINE pilot project in York County. Includes the number of rescues conducted in dark blue, and the subsequent meals rescued in the light blue. Separated by month.

pie graph explaining the ratio of active to inactive volunteers

Figure 2: Contrasted active volunteers participating in rescues and inactive volunteers. Inactive = volunteers that are registered in the Food Rescue MAINE system, but that have not completed a rescue.

2021 Food Rescue report table showing that in November of 2021, one food rescue delivered 25 meals, and in December of 2021, 8 food rescues delivered 150 meals

Table 1: Rescue report in numerical terms for 2021. Separated by month.