Chair: Whitney Fung, University of South Florida, whitneyfung@health.usf.edu
Members:
Scarlet Amey-Wyns, FISH
Jessica Doricent, BayCare
Ashley Giasone, The Ryan Wells Foundation
Sharon Hicks, Hillsborough Community College
Mark Trujillo, UF/IFAS
Project Description:
Recover excess food from restaurants, bakeries, and retail locations in the Tampa Bay Area by launching an app in partnership with Waste No Food to be used on smart phones, with corresponding website, to connect restaurants with local 501(c)(3) charities who can distribute the food to their clients. The donor will be able to post a description of the excess food, including quantity and a pickup window. The first recipient to claim the food will arrange for a driver trained in safe food handling practices to pick it up within that window. If no recipient claims the food, research the possibility of enlisting farmers or compost facilities to use the excess food for animal feed or compost.
Progress Notes:
Numerous charities have signed up to be recipients in the Waste No Food Tampa Bay app program. The team is now focusing on signing up restaurants, farms, and corner stores to be donors. Sweetwater Organic Community Farm recently donated several hundred pounds of fresh produce, which was picked up by Meals on Wheels Tampa, in our biggest donation ever.
Following a successful pilot in Gulfport, the team is now focusing on signing up more charity recipients in both Pinellas and Hillsborough counties before signing up more donors, to ensure that every donation will be picked up. They are finalizing brochures to distribute to potential donors and working on window decals for donors to post once they have signed up.
Met with the recipient agencies to begin the training process. HCC (Shirley Hamilton) is vetting the recipients to ensure they are properly trained in food handling, etc. The restaurants in Gulfport have been contacted. We met with the Mayor of Gulfport to explain the program and they are supporting the food recovery efforts.
Launch pilot with approximately 3 donors in downtown St. Petersburg. Ensure that app is functioning efficiently and that there are enough qualifying charities to receive the excess food of further donors.
Further goals:
Recruit further donors and launch full version of app.