CINCINNATI — At the end of the annual multi-day Taste of Cincinnati festival, a lot of food is left over, and no hungry patrons are left walking the streets to chow down.
The Last Mile Food Rescue group works each year to ensure that the leftover food goes to good use, feeding those in need.
Volunteers like Erica Johnson go booth to booth making sure any leftovers are wrapped in containers, labeled and taken to one of 130 partner organizations for distribution.
"We give them trays, and we label them and we bring them back to this van and they take care of the rest," Johnson said.
WATCH: You can help eliminate food waste and help feed people in need
The group has partnered with the Cincinnati Regional Chamber for the last three years to collect food that otherwise would end up in a landfill.
“The Cincinnati Regional Chamber partners with Last Mile Rescue as part of Taste of Cincinnati to collect unused food and distribute it to area food banks and other organizations that make sure it goes to those in need," said Chelsea York, vice president of events and experiences for the Cincinnati Regional Chamber. "It's another way we can give back to the community and reduce the amount of waste from the event, making it more sustainable.”
Taste of Cincinnati is just a sliver of the work Last Mile Food Rescue does in the Greater Cincinnati area. Most of the group's work involves picking up food that would otherwise go to waste around the region and delivering it to partner groups.
"There's not necessarily a food desert," Johnson said. "The food is just in the wrong place, and if I can volunteer, you're basically an Uber for the food."
Last Mile CEO Eileen Budo said if a quarter of wasted food is preserved through actions like what her organization does, then food insecurity could be eliminated.
"Food waste is a really dumb problem," she said.
Last Mile has an app that lists the location of donations ready for pick-up with instructions for drivers to claim it, make the collection and get it where it needs to go. Budo said the app does all the hard work for people interested in volunteering.
"We're working with well over 130 organizations all over Greater Cincinnati," she said. "They're soup kitchens. They're pantries. They're after-school programs."
You can find the Last Mile Food Rescue mobile app by searching the group's name in the Apple or Google Play store.
