Unlocking Food Rescue at Scale: The Case for a More Coordinated Sector

In 2024, approximately 1.7 million tons of food moved through the charitable food system. Yet just under 13% of potentially donatable food reached people, leaving an enormous opportunity to nourish communities, reduce waste, and prevent avoidable emissions.

For businesses operating across dozens or even hundreds of locations, donating surplus food can be complicated. Each location may need to coordinate with different local nonprofits, arrange pickups, navigate varying food safety procedures, and manage separate reporting requirements. Even when businesses are committed to donation, this administrative burden can make it difficult to work consistently with local food rescue organizations.

Making food donation easier for businesses is critical to expanding recovery. And that means rethinking how food rescue organizations work together.

Today, the food rescue system is highly fragmented. Organizations often operate independently, with their own teams, systems, infrastructure, and relationships. While local expertise is one of the sector's greatest strengths, operating in silos can also lead to duplicated efforts, uneven geographic coverage, and gaps in service. It makes coordinating across regions more difficult and limits the sector's ability to provide the consistent, reliable service that large food donors need.

Unlocking the full potential of food rescue will require more than growing individual organizations. It will require connecting the capabilities that already exist across the sector.

What Businesses Need to Donate at Scale

Food rescue organizations have built an extraordinary foundation: trusted donor relationships, dedicated volunteers, transportation networks, cold storage, technology, and deep knowledge of their communities. The opportunity now is to connect these capabilities so businesses can access them more easily and reliably.

For corporate food donors in particular, three capabilities are essential:

1. A coordinated network, not a patchwork of partners.

Major food companies need a reliable point of contact that can coordinate donations across locations, connect operators with qualified local food rescue organizations, and help resolve operational issues. That doesn't mean one organization needs to physically collect every pound of food. A regional or national coordinating partner could manage a network of local organizations, making their collective capacity easier for businesses to access.

2. Consistent food safety and accountability.

Businesses need confidence that donated food will be handled, transported, and stored according to appropriate food safety procedures. They also need clear documentation and an understanding of who is responsible for each part of the process.

Organizations may already have strong individual practices, but businesses operating across multiple markets can encounter different procedures, agreements, and requirements. A coordinated network could establish common standards, streamline onboarding, and clarify responsibilities through appropriate legal agreements and protections.

3. Reliable, consolidated reporting.

Corporations increasingly view food donation as part of their sustainability and social impact strategies. They need to understand how much food was collected, where it went, and what impact it had.

When organizations use different systems, metrics, and reporting formats, businesses are left to reconcile the information themselves. Shared data systems and common reporting standards could give businesses a consistent view of their donation programs while helping food rescue organizations identify service gaps and demonstrate their impact.

Together, these capabilities could make food donation simpler for businesses and more compelling for companies considering expanding their donation programs.

Imagine a More Coordinated Food Rescue Network

Imagine a national food company looking to expand its surplus food donation program across hundreds of locations.

Today, the company may need to identify and establish relationships with individual food rescue organizations in each market, navigate different onboarding procedures, coordinate pickups, and reconcile reporting across multiple partners. Even with a strong commitment to food donation, this complexity can make expansion difficult.

Now imagine a different approach.

The company works with a coordinating partner that understands its operational requirements and connects its locations with qualified food rescue organizations across the country. Rather than managing dozens of separate relationships, the business has a central point of contact to coordinate its donation program.

Common procedures streamline onboarding. Food safety requirements and responsibilities are clearly documented. Local organizations coordinate pickups based on their capacity and expertise. If one partner encounters a service gap or capacity constraint, the network can identify another organization to help. Donation data flows into a shared reporting system, giving the company a consolidated view of its recovery efforts and impact.

Behind the scenes, organizations continue doing what they do best. One may have deep relationships with local grocers. Another may specialize in prepared food recovery. A third may have refrigerated transportation, cold storage, or technology that improves routing and tracking.

The business gets a more consistent, reliable donation experience across its locations. Local organizations retain the relationships and community expertise that make them effective, while gaining access to new donors, shared resources, and opportunities to expand their reach.

This type of coordinated national infrastructure is not yet widely established in the United States outside of Feeding America's network. However, several organizations have pieces of the foundation needed to help advance this model. The National Food Recovery Association (NFRA) and Food Rescue Alliance, for example, have existing infrastructure and relationships that could help bring organizations together, identify shared needs, and build greater coordination across the food rescue landscape.

Collaboration Doesn't Have to Mean a Merger

When nonprofit leaders hear the word consolidation, they may picture a full merger, a loss of independence, or the disappearance of an organization's name and identity. But collaboration exists on a much broader spectrum.

Organizations can explore several approaches depending on their needs, resources, and strategic goals:

• Coordinate operations: Establish regional or national networks to manage corporate donor relationships, coordinate pickups, and connect businesses with local partners.

• Share services and infrastructure: Pool resources for technology, data, finance, human resources, compliance, or fundraising while remaining independent.

• Integrate programs: Transfer a program to an organization better positioned to operate and scale it.

• Merge operations: Combine organizations when doing so creates a stronger, more sustainable model for serving communities.

These approaches demonstrate that organizations don't need to become one entity to function more effectively as a system. The right model depends on the challenge being addressed and the capabilities each organization brings, and there are already examples of these approaches across the charitable food system and the broader food waste sector.

In 2023, HelpKitchen acquired Plentiful, a technology platform originally developed by the NYC Food Assistance Collaborative and operated by City Harvest and United Way of New York City. Plentiful had already connected hundreds of food pantries through a shared reservation system that helped providers manage demand and made food access easier for community members. The acquisition created an opportunity to build on that established model and expand it nationally, while preserving existing access for New York City pantries and maintaining the involvement of its original partners. It illustrates how shared technology can strengthen coordination without requiring local providers to become part of one organization.

The organics recycling sector offers another perspective: how consolidation can bring complementary infrastructure and regional capabilities together to build scale. Organics recycling is logistics-intensive and geographically constrained. Its economics depend on route density, transportation costs, facility utilization, and the ability to move large volumes efficiently.

In November 2025, Circular Services acquired Atlas Organics, a composting company with eight sites across the country. The acquisition followed Circular Services' additions of Quantum Organics and Blue Earth Compost, expanding its collection and processing capabilities and bringing more organics infrastructure into a broader operating platform. The combined footprint gives Circular Services a stronger foundation to serve businesses and municipalities across multiple markets.

Food rescue operates differently from organics recycling, and a commercial acquisition is not a direct blueprint for nonprofit collaboration. But the strategic principle is relevant: organizations can build greater capacity by bringing complementary capabilities, infrastructure, and geographic reach together rather than developing everything independently.

However, food rescue has largely been absent from this broader consolidation story. ReFED's analysis of food waste transactions identified only three nonprofit acquisitions over 12 years, two of which involved software platforms. There is an opportunity for the sector to think more deliberately about how collaboration and consolidation could strengthen its ability to recover and distribute more food.

Start With the Challenge, Not the Organizational Structure

Exploring collaboration doesn't have to start with a conversation about merging. It can start with a more practical question: What is limiting an organization's ability to recover and distribute more food, and could another organization help address it?

For food rescue leaders, this means taking a closer look at operations, identifying where resources or capabilities are stretched, and considering whether working with another organization could create a stronger model.

For example:

• Struggling to serve more corporate food donors? Explore whether a regional partnership could coordinate donor relationships, standardize onboarding, and connect multiple business locations with local food rescue organizations.

• Facing high operating costs or limited resources? Consider sharing transportation, cold storage, technology, or administrative services with organizations operating in the same geography.

• Experiencing gaps in geographic coverage or service capacity? Identify organizations with complementary capabilities that could help extend reach or serve donors and communities more consistently.

• Finding it difficult to sustain a program or service? Explore whether another organization has the resources, infrastructure, or expertise to operate and expand it.

• Facing long-term financial or organizational sustainability challenges? Consider whether a strategic partnership or merger could create a stronger operating model and better position both organizations to deliver on their missions.

Collaboration can also strengthen an organization's case for philanthropic support. Many funders are looking for greater coordination across the sector, less duplication of efforts and infrastructure, and more impact from their investments. Organizations that demonstrate how they are working together to address shared challenges can offer funders a compelling alternative to financing similar capabilities independently. Rather than competing for the same limited pool of dollars to build duplicative systems, organizations can identify opportunities for funders to invest in shared infrastructure, coordinated services, and complementary strengths that benefit the broader ecosystem. Collaboration can therefore be both an operational strategy and a fundraising strategy, helping organizations align with funder priorities while making a stronger case for the resources needed to deliver greater collective impact.

Build on Strengths, Not Just Efficiencies

A more coordinated food rescue system should build on the relationships and expertise that make local organizations effective, not come at their expense.

Community trust, local donor relationships, knowledge of recipient agencies, and an understanding of regional needs are valuable assets. Any collaborative model should preserve and build on these strengths.

That takes careful planning. Organizations need to be intentional about what they share, what they preserve, and how responsibilities are distributed. It also requires alignment among leadership and boards, a compelling strategic rationale, and a thoughtful plan for managing the transition.

The goal should not simply be to reduce operating costs. It should be to translate stronger shared capabilities into better outcomes: more food recovered, more communities served, more reliable service, and greater long-term organizational sustainability.

The Next Frontier for Food Rescue Is Working Better Together

The gap between the food available for donation and the food that reaches people is too large to close through individual organizations simply working harder.

Food rescue organizations have already built much of the infrastructure needed to make greater recovery possible. The challenge now is connecting that infrastructure in ways that meet the needs of the businesses that supply the food and the communities that receive it.

The next step is for food rescue leaders to move from recognizing the opportunity to exploring what it could look like in practice:

• Take stock: Identify the capabilities, infrastructure, and relationships that could be shared or better coordinated.

• Find potential partners: Start conversations with organizations that have complementary strengths, serve overlapping geographies, or face similar operational challenges.

• Identify a place to start: Choose one shared challenge, such as corporate donor coordination, transportation, technology, or reporting, and explore a practical way to address it together.

The goal isn't consolidation for consolidation's sake. It's a stronger, more coordinated food rescue system that can meet the needs of food donors and food-insecure communities at scale.

The food is there. The need is there. The opportunity now is to build a system capable of connecting them.

For a deeper look at these opportunities, watch ReFED's recent webinar, Rethinking Food Rescue: Exploring Consolidation and Collaboration to Scale Impact.