Our History

Food Rescue US was founded in Fairfield County in 2011 when our founders, Jeff Schacher and Kevin Mullins, recognized that two growing challenges facing their community and the nation - food insecurity and food waste - could be solved with an innovative app, volunteers, and a direct-transfer model.

Together they founded Community Plates and created a unique model of food rescue that is simple, sustainable, and scalable. The organization quickly received vast support from volunteer rescuers, food donors, and social service agencies, and by 2014, the organization had rescued more than 6 million meals and was serving not only Fairfield County but also Albuquerque and Columbus.

In the following years, we continued to expand in order to meet the needs of more communities. In 2017, the organization changed its name to Food Rescue US in recognition of our expanding national presence and simultaneously launched a new version of our app, which we continue to upgrade.

Since our founding, we have provided more than 117 million meals and kept more than 147 million pounds of excess food out of landfills. Food Rescue US is now in 43 locations across 25 states and the District of Columbia, and we are constantly growing.