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Tech for good

To Leah Lizarondo, the math never added up: 40% of the food supply in the United States ends up in landfills, while one in seven Americans experiences food insecurity.

Lizarondo, who earned a master’s degree in public policy and technology from Heinz College in 2003, had an idea to improve those numbers, and eventually developed a platform that connected surplus food with those who need it. That eventually became 412 Food Rescue, a platform that began in Pittsburgh and continues to spread to new partners across the globe.

The premise is simple: 412 Food Rescue redirects perfectly good food from entering the waste stream by collecting unsellable yet fresh, healthy and safe edibles from retailers, restaurants and food service companies and moving them directly to nonprofit partners who distribute the food. A network of thousands of drivers, all mobilized through 412 Food Rescue’s mobile app, transports the food from the retailers.

It makes a difference. In 2024, 412 Food Rescue and its global partners collected almost 50 million tons of food and distributed it to more than 2,600 nonprofit organizations. That not only puts fresh food directly in the hands of those who need it, but it helps tackle climate change as well; the group’s 2024 donations also mitigated more than 100 million pounds of carbon emissions.

“412 Food Rescue provides a solution to the food waste problem through technology that mobilizes civic participation,” said Lizarondo, who left the organization in 2023. “It’s tech for good. It’s creating and scaling an entirely new food distribution network.”