Food Cowboy uses mobile technology to combat hunger and food waste! Food Cowboy's mobile app helps truckers, wholesalers and retailers route surplus fresh produce to charities instead of landfills when deliveries are refused for cosmetic reasons. It delivers just-in-time routing information, facilitates scheduling, expedites charitable donation tax paperwork, and offers food safety guidance and controls, making the food rescue or recovery process easy for all involved.
Food Cowboy also can be used at the community level, allowing local restaurants, supermarkets and foodservice companies to alert nearby charities and rescue volunteers when they have food to donate. They don’t have to commit to donating food ahead of time, only when they have extra and they’ll get social media credit every time they donate.
And now event hosts and event planners can not only ensure their guests enjoy themselves at catered affairs, but leave knowing that the event is 100% food waste-free. For $1 per guest, Food Cowboy arranges for a local charity to collect unserved food from a catered event of 250 guests or more.
Founded by Roger Gordon, a lawyer, Richard Gordon, a trucker of 25 years, and Barbara Cohen, PhD, a nutrition and food security expert, Food Cowboy was named one of the 100 Most Creative Businesses in 2014 by Fast Company and has been covered by NPR, CNN, Huffington Post among others. Food Cowboy works closely with the USDA and the UN/FAO, helping to spearhead their efforts to address food waste and hunger in the US and worldwide.