ReFED hosts its annual Food Waste Solutions Summit to convene practitioners from across the food community under our “big tent” to advance our vision of a sustainable, resilient, and inclusive food system that makes the best use of the food we grow. This article series is designed to keep conversations from the Summit going throughout the year and revisit some of the key themes and takeaways shared during the conference. To learn more about the Summit, visit summit.refed.org.

ReFED estimates that only 12% of the 14.5 million tons of surplus food that could be donated actually gets donated, equating to 1.75 million tons in 2023. But with 47.4 million Americans facing food insecurity—a number that could increase as major cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) take effect this year—the importance of food donation and recovery is only anticipated to grow as a strategy to feed people and reduce waste.

Fortunately, there are food recovery organizations across the country that are finding new and exciting ways to strengthen their services, scale their impact, and reimagine a food system where food rescue is embedded and easy-to-do. Two of these organizations—Sharing Excess and Food Rescue Hero—participated in the Reimagining Food Rescue: How to Strengthen Food Recovery in a Complex Climate breakout session at the 2025 ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit. Sharing Excess is a nonprofit that rescues food waste at scale, including from some of the largest wholesale produce markets in the country, to redistribute it to communities facing food insecurity. Food Rescue Hero is a platform developed by 412 Food Rescue to help manage the complex logistics of rescuing food in a highly distributed network, which they started licensing to other food recovery organizations in 2018.

To learn more about how these groups are reimagining food rescue, we spoke with Evan Ehlers, Founder and CEO of Sharing Excess, and Jen England, Vice President of External Affairs at Food Rescue Hero and 412 Food Rescue. From these conversations, we identified three key themes for how to strengthen food recovery in today’s world.

Distinguish food recovery from other types of charitable food aid.

Food recovery organizations operate within the broader charitable food assistance ecosystem, but they are unique in that they’re “focused on maximizing the amount of food rescued while minimizing the amount of food that goes to waste,” says Jen. They then distribute that rescued food to the places where it can feed the food insecure, which include food pantries and food banks, but also expands to other community-based partners like HeadStart or LGBTQ+ health centers.

And as Jen identifies, “Outside of the food recovery industry, there’s not a lot of understanding about what’s different between food recovery and the charitable food system, why they’re complementary and necessary, and how to support food recovery individually as its own thing.” This becomes a challenge when policymakers attempt to establish laws to scale and support food recovery. “These legislative bodies aren’t turning to food recovery organizations; instead, they go to food banks or players in the charitable food system,” explains Jen. “Legislators, funders, the layperson, they link food recovery to food assistance—but we’re different.”

Drawing that distinction between food recovery and other types of emergency food aid and educating food businesses will enable greater capacity to donate more food. “Food recovery can fill the gaps that are left when major food donors run out of places to send food in the traditional charitable food system,” notes Jen. “We can pick up on those off-days of the week when donors are left with nowhere to turn.”

This also becomes particularly relevant in the context of diminished funding for traditional food assistance programs like SNAP. “Food recovery is in a unique position of not necessarily being directly impacted by cuts because food is rescued,” Jen explains. “In some ways, we provide a solution for community-based organizations that are seeing an increase in demand and a decrease in funding.”

Make food rescue and recovery part of the core infrastructure of the food system.

“Food rescue is often thought of as small, localized, and volunteer-driven,” shares Evan. “We’ve reimagined it by treating food rescue like critical infrastructure—just as important as waste management or public transit.” For Sharing Excess, that means embedding in wholesale markets, using technology to track every donation, and creating systems that food donors, government, and community partners can rely on at scale. And their team has shown it works. “We know we can rescue enormous amounts of food, that’s been proven,” notes Evan. Since Sharing Excess was founded in 2018, they have diverted more than 150 million pounds of food from going to waste.

To make their vision a reality, Evan points out that it will take everything from reevaluating how farmers are compensated to how tax incentives are structured and cost-sharing agreements with businesses and governments could work. “If we can move food rescue from being an ‘extra’ effort to being part of the core infrastructure of the food system, we’ll create something that lasts,” Evan remarks.

Institutionalize collaboration and coordination among food recovery organizations.

Both Jen and Evan emphasized that traditionally, food recovery work has been done on a local or regional level without much interaction with other food recovery organizations. But to scale, there needs to be a coordinated effort to work together. “Most food rescue efforts are done in silos, whether geographically or operationally,” shares Evan. “To truly shift the food system more sustainably, we need to collaborate. We need to work more like logistics companies: partnering directly with upstream sources, investing in infrastructure and technology, and collaborating across organizations instead of competing,” he emphasizes.

In June at the 2025 ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit, a major step in this direction was taken with the announcement of a newly formed National Food Recovery Association (NFRA). “It’s a body of, by, and for food recovery organizations,” explains Jen. The association was formed to advocate for what food recovery organizations need; bring informed, real-world solutions to lawmakers, funders, businesses, and others that want to scale food recovery; and help create industry standards so “you don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time someone wants to start a food recovery organization,” she notes.

NFRA is working on its 501(c)3 nonprofit status and is in the process of fundraising and building out its programmatic side. One of its first projects will include developing a living database of food recovery organizations that is constantly updated so food donors have a real-time rolodex of food recovery organizations they can work with. It will also be helpful for funders looking to support food recovery organizations and for new organizations who want to establish connections in the space.

This connection could be one of the keys to unlocking the capacity of food recovery to operate at scale as a solution for reducing wasted food. “It takes collective energy to solve food waste, and we’re always open to collaboration and new ideas to push the sector forward,” concludes Evan.

You can watch the full recording of “Reimagining Food Rescue: How to Strengthen Food Recovery in a Complex Environment” below. To stay up-to-date on all of the latest ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit news, sign up for our mailing list.

Image Credit: Sharing Excess