Meet the Entrepreneur Disrupting the Food Industry — for Good

Goodr in Atlanta addresses both hunger and food waste

A few years ago, when Jasmine Crowe worked as a philanthropy entrepreneur in Atlanta, she started “Sunday Soul,” a dinner series for senior citizens and relatively low-income families. Before each dinner, Crowe cooked meals, or drove around the city collecting donated food from restaurants. She recalls asking restaurants: “Why don’t you donate leftover food?” Some of the responses: If someone gets sick from donated pot roast, could the restaurant be sued? Was donating food even legal? Some people were unaware that by donating food, they’d qualify for tax benefits.

Crowe, now 36, recalls looking at the statistics: In the U.S., more than half of all produce is discarded each year, much of it from restaurants and grocery stores. Industrialized nations waste more than $680 billion worth of food annually, especially cereals, root crops, fruits, and meats. Every year, about one-third of food produced for people is wasted or lost, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. The astonishing waste comes even as parts of the world are teeming with hunger and poverty. That’s why eliminating hunger and promoting food security is one of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals for the planet by 2030. Given those…