Last Mile Food Rescue’s (Last Mile) innovative model aims to keep fresh, desirable food out of landfills by rescuing surplus food from establishments like grocery stores, hospitals, stadiums, and convenience stores, and redistributing it to agency partners who serve the food insecure. This process of upcycling donated food waste is a preferred solution on the EPA’s Wasted Food Scale.
Each year, over 700 Last Mile volunteers are directed using a mobile app to pick up food at locations throughout the Greater Cincinnati region and drop it off at over 100 recipient agencies, including shelters, soup kitchens, and pantries. These recipient partners then provide the food to the region’s food-insecure population.
In 2024, Last Mile’s goal is to grow the amount of food kept out of landfills by 25%, rescuing a total of 4 million pounds of food. This follows a nearly 30% growth in pounds rescued from 2022 to 2023. Reaching this milestone will significantly reduce the amount of food dumped, thereby reducing greenhouse gases, while impacting the lives of the most vulnerable, including more than 80,000 food-insecure children across the counties served. Beyond 2024, Last Mile has the bold ambition to scale operations to rescue 6 million pounds of food annually by 2027. Last Mile cannot meet this goal without continued strategic investments as well as educational programs and training opportunities for food donors. The focus must be on attracting and retaining additional food donors needed to reach the food rescue goal. Funds would support the recruitment of new food donors, their onboarding, training, and ongoing support designed to retain them long-term.
Additionally, Last Mile is partnering with two local agencies to achieve these goals:
1. Hamilton County ReSource (ReSource) - the County agency responsible for ensuring that the County achieves state-mandated goals for recycling and waste reduction.
2. Green Umbrella - the region’s climate collaborative.
Together, these two agencies in coordination with Last Mile, will create training programs to educate businesses and individuals in Southern Ohio on the importance of eliminating food waste.
With a combination of this education and training, as well as strategically focused work with food donors, Last Mile believes it can reduce food waste by an additional 2 million pounds annually, totaling 6 million pounds per year, reduce CO2 emissions by 3.24 million pounds total, per year and serve as a model for other regions to learn from as they seek to solve their own food insecurity challenges.
With these objectives in mind, Last Mile respectfully requests $641,371 to directly support its strategic expansion efforts and its training and education partnership with ReSource and Green Umbrella.
Project Objectives:
Senators Sherrod Brown and Ron
Wyden Delivering Food they rescued from Kroger with Last
Mile. Green Umbrella 2024 Sustainability
Summit
Eliminate Food Waste
Increase Last Mile Food Donors (by 20%)
Increase Food Donor Retention through streamlined processes and dedicated staff
Educate the region on strategies to reduce food waste
Deploy Training Activities Across the Greater Cincinnati
Region
Plan and Host Two Food Waste Summits:
Host two Food Waste Summits in the Greater Cincinnati region (2025, 2027) with 300 participants each.
Focus on the tri-state region of KY, IN, and OH.
Invite experts and practitioners from across the Midwest and Appalachian regions.
Emphasize connecting various audiences, including producers, value-added and retail businesses, wholesale procurement, food rescue and redistribution partners, and retail consumers.
Plan and Host Six Short-Form Trainings:
Conduct six short-form trainings about food loss and waste reduction through the Regional Climate Collaborative (2026).
Target institutional members across sectors, including businesses, educational institutions, local governments, and nonprofit organizations.
Produce and Distribute a Toolkit:
Develop a toolkit defining best practices in food waste prevention, donation, and upcycling.
Share resources developed for and presented at the Summits and the short-form trainings.
Update the toolkit after each Summit.
Create and Launch a Public Education Campaign:
Develop a public education campaign about food waste reduction, primarily through prevention and upcycling.
Aim the campaign at household consumer audiences (2026).Through increased awareness, the region will support the reduction of food waste and promote food rescue on a larger scale.
Cooperators
Click linked name(s) to expand/collapse or show everyone's infohide everyone's info
Last Mile Food Rescue rescues good food which otherwise would go to the landfill by utilizing a corps of over 800 volunteers as well as a small fleet of vehicles. Each food donor is matched with a nonprofit organization that receives their rescued food. Once a match is made, the rescue is uploaded into our Food Rescue Hero app and made available for volunteers to claim. Once a volunteer claims a rescue, the app provides instruction to rescue the food from the donor and drop it off at the nonprofit organization. While around 95% of our rescues are performed using volunteers, we do have a small fleet that performs rescues that are too large for individual volunteers to rescue such as a multi-pallet rescue of fruit juice from Tropicana.
All of our rescues are recorded through the Food Rescue Hero app and we utilize the app's reporting feature to track metrics such as the number of pounds rescued and CO2 mitigated. The app also records each rescue route. This is an efficient way to collect data which can be analyzed to chart our progress toward the goal of rescuing 6 million pounds annually by 2027 and increasing our donor base by 20%. For the purpose of this report, all data collected and analyzed is from October 2024 to February 28, 2025.
While the app allows us to track our metrics, we engage in a number of activities to grow, retain and educate our food donors. Targeted digital marketing campaigns are used to recruit new food donors. Our new food donors go through an onboarding process which includes initial meetings to establish and understanding of the program, onsite training to prepare the space and staff, and Last Mile staff assigned to complete the first few rescues. Once a donor in onboarded, they receive a monthly newsletter called Beyond Leftovers to provide a monthly touchpoint to our donors who opt in. Last Mile tracks the number of new food donors and retention of current food donors through the app while the open rate and click through rate of the newsletter provides perspective on ongoing donor engagement.
To understand the impact of our rescued food, we partner with data analytics firm 84.51 who has created a food insecurity mapping tool to track the areas of highest need. Last Mile uses this tool to determine priority areas and how to move new nonprofits off of the waitlist. Additionally, through the Food Rescue Hero app, we can also track where our rescued food is going and informs our decision making to distribute the food equitably.
A new website, educational videos, and a consistent social media calendar are three tactics Last Mile uses to spread awareness to the general public about food waste and rescue. Last Mile's website was relaunched in November of 2024 including new key words to increase our web presence and drive traffic to the site. Last Mile is in the final stages of editing video assets created to educate both food donors and the general public about the need, ease, and benefits of food donation.
Project's supply chain focus areas:
Farm
Distribution
Storage
Retail/grocery
Restaurant
School/institution
962 Stakeholders participated in the project
Food recovery methods:
Prevent Wasted Food
Donate or Upcycle
How the activities align with the food recovery methods:
All project activities are tied to our core mission to keep good food out of the landfill and into the community.
Research results and discussion:
Last Mile Food Rescue's project aims to eliminate food waste and food insecurity through educational tactics targeting food donors and spreading awareness about food rescue broadly across the region. While the majority of the broad educational programming will take place in future months, we have started tracking progress towards our goal of rescuing 6 million pounds and increasing our recurring donors by 20%.
From October 2024 to February 28, 2025, Last Mile performed 7,768 rescues keeping 2,093,489 pounds of good food out of the landfill and mitigating 5.5 million pounds of CO2. During this period, we rescued from 330 food donors and distributed to 120 non-profit partners utilizing 512 volunteers.
The 2+ million rescued during this time includes rescuing over 1 million pounds in the first two months of 2025 alone. This growth rate puts Last Mile on track to reach the 6 million per year goal before the anticipated date of 2027.
Out of the 330 food donors who scheduled a rescue, 60 (18%) were new donors. Just under half of the new donors represent expansions of existing relationships with donors. For example, after cultivating a relationship with the leadership of St Elizabeth Hospital's main campus, we have expanded to serve 3 other satellite locations. The other half of new donors represent collaborations with new partners we have previously not worked with. These donors include new restaurant chains such as Kentucky Fried Chicken, special event rescues from places like the Contemporary Arts Center, and pre-winter break rescues from local school districts. Lastly, 5 new donors represent "distressed loads" which are large load donations from truckers who are turned away by their final destination, typically a distribution center for a retail store. Last Mile receives these calls from truckers both in our region and beyond as demonstrated by rescues originated in Columbus, Ohio and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Each one of these new food donors represents a new opportunity to keep food out of the landfill and into the hands of our neighbors in need. The 60 new donors enrolled since October 2024 donated 126,858 pounds of food that would have otherwise been wasted.
Of the 330 donors from October to February, 212 of them are "recurring" donors meaning that they donate on a consistent schedule. This represents a 3.7% increase from the 204 recurring donors recorded prior to the grant term starting. By adding a new staff person dedicated to food donors, we anticipate this number will continue to grow as we convert one-time donors into recurring donors, onboard new locations of recurring donors and continue to grow our donor base to reach the goal of 20% growth in recurring donors.
Last Mile’s primary program focuses on food recovery and redistribution to those in the community who are in the most need of fresh, healthy food. Last Mile partners with nonprofit agencies that serve the most at-risk populations in Hamilton, Butler, Warren, and Clermont counties in Ohio. These organizations include homeless shelters, pantries, food banks, soup kitchens, senior centers, and daycare centers. Through these partnerships, Last Mile serves individuals, children, and families at or below the poverty threshold who often do not know where their next meal will come from. Last Mile’s food recovery and redistribution work is key to solving this systemic problem.
From October 2024 to February 28, 2025, Last Mile worked with 126 nonprofits from 56 different zip codes across the greater Cincinnati area. 12 new nonprofits were brought on board during this period including 5 that will now receive regularly scheduled recurring rescues.
Last Mile records data from each rescue including what types of food are rescued. Attached is a graph and table depicting the breakdown of food types and percentages.
Last Mile provides a critical link in the supply chain between food donors and nonprofit agencies. Prior to Last Mile, Cincinnati had limited food rescue activity resulting in millions of pounds of good food going into the landfill. For example, Last Mile began rescuing prepared trays of food from Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati and taking them a quarter mile away to the Shelterhouse, the city's largest facility for unhoused men. This relationship has produced over 50,000 meals in 3 years. This is just a small example of the important link Last Mile provides between food donors and nonprofit partners that generates a tangible benefit for the community. Since 2020, Last Mile has created new links in the supply chain that have resulted in over 13 million pounds of food.
Milestones:
Last Mile has completed the first milestone on the project timeline which is hiring the Food Donation Stewardship Manager. Amy Metzger, a dedicated nonprofit worker with a background in public health, was hired to fill this role on March 13, 2025. She will be working with the Senior Manager, Food Donation, Erik Hyden on the next two project milestones: formalizing the donor onboarding and stewardship process and providing ongoing support for food donors.
Last Mile, along with project collaborators Green Umbrella and Hamilton County Resource, have met three times to begin planning the first food waste summit, corresponding toolkit, and public awareness campaign. The three partners convened three times in late 2024 and early 2025 to begin planning this part of the project.
Education
Educational approach:
Last Mile's project focuses educating food donors and the general public on food waste and food rescue. Last Mile just hired our Food Donation Stewardship Manager, Amy Metzger, who will be working with our Senior Manager, Food Donation, Erik Hyden, to revamp our onboarding process, produce training materials, and provide technical assistance to food donors. Educational videos about food rescue that will be shared with food donors are in the final stages of production and will be included in the next report. Additionally, Last Mile relaunched our website in November 2024 to include a dedicated page for food donors. This page will serve as a destination where training materials and videos will be published. The majority of the work on this part of the project will take place in the upcoming months.
Last Mile is also partnering with two local organizations, Green Umbrella and Hamilton County Resource, to produce two food waste summits and a series of smaller workshops. A toolkit will be produced to complement the summit and a public awareness campaign will follow it. The majority of the work on this part of the project will take place in future months.
Educational & Outreach Activities
20 Consultations
7 In person trainings
6 Published press articles, newsletters
6 Webinars / talks / presentations
Participation Summary:
300 Stakeholders
Education/outreach description:
Two types of educational and outreach activities have taken place during the first few months of the grant period: meetings to recruit and onboard new food donors and speaking engagements to increase awareness around food waste and food insecurity.
Food donor meetings include initial consultations with interested donors as well as trainings with staff once they are ready to onboard. Consultations include providing information about food waste and the benefits of food rescue. These consultations are tailored to meet the needs of different types of food donors. For example, a consultation with the sustainability manager of a corporate cafe would be different than a consultation with the manager of a distribution center. Once a donor expresses interest in enrolling in our program, the staff responsible for the preparing the donated food are trained in the proper steps to safely donate the food. Developing updated onboarding materials will be the next steps in this project.
Staff from Last Mile spread awareness about food waste and food insecurity by performing speaking engagements in the community. These speaking engagements represent a diverse slice of community constituents from church congregations to student groups, and corporate event attendees. These outreach opportunities not only spread the word about Last Mile's work in the community but also often result in new volunteers and new connections to food donors. For example, a speaking engagement at St John's Unitarian Universalist Church resulted in a charitable donation, a new volunteer downloading the app, and a connection to a local school district to rescue from their cafeterias.
In the upcoming months, educational activities will increase as Last Mile will work with Hamilton County Resource and Green Umbrella to do both broad and targeted engagement through the food waste summit and public awareness campaign.
Project Outcomes
100 New working collaborations
Project outcomes:
Last Mile's project goal is to increase food donation in the Cincinnati region through education initiatives targeting food donors and the general public. Since the start of the grant term, we have been laying the groundwork for our future success. Below are the five outcomes outlined in our project proposal that we are working towards and will be assessed in future reports.
Enhanced Awareness: Increased public awareness and understanding of food waste issues and the importance of food rescue, leading to behavioral changes and reduced food waste at the household level.
Capacity Building: Increased capacity of institutions to implement food waste reduction practices and establishment of food waste reduction as a priority within institutional policies and operations.
Collaborative Networks: Established and strengthened networks among diverse stakeholders, fostering collaboration and the sharing of best practices, and innovations in food waste reduction.
Sustainable Practices: Adoption of sustainable food systems principles and technologies by a broad range of stakeholders, including household behavioral change, contributing to the overall reduction of food waste in the region.
Lasting Training and Educational Materials: Updated toolkit based on project and stakeholder feedback to include goals, indicators, practices, and knowledge to help facilitate the adoption of effective food waste reduction practices across the region.
Recommendations:
Legislation mandating food rescue similar to California's SB1383 would make the biggest difference in combatting waste in our region. Right now, Last Mile spends significant time and effort to recruit new food donors. While most donors understand the problem of food waste many are slow or reluctant to become food donors because of the perceived time, effort and resources it takes to set up the program. While our education with donors breaks down those barriers, legislation that compelled food industry players to donate would allow us to redirect our resources around recruitment to education, retention, and further cultivation.
Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and should not be construed to represent any official USDA or U.S. Government determination or policy.
