An astonishing 63 million tons of food are wasted every year in the U.S. — 25 million tons of that from consumer-facing businesses alone. Yet, one in seven Americans is food insecure.
With Project DASH, our flagship social impact program, we’re on a mission to fight hunger and reduce food waste. To strengthen our commitment to this mission, we’re excited to announce today that we’ve partnered with Transfernation to help power delivery of surplus food donated by local businesses who use their food-rescue app. Transfernation’s app allows businesses to request pickups of untouched food surplus to be delivered to a nearby hunger-relief nonprofit. We’re proud to support Transfernation by subsidizing those deliveries via Project DASH.
We sat down with Hannah Dehradunwala, the co-founder of Transfernation to chat about her mission to fight hunger and food waste and how Transfernation is making it easier for local businesses to join the effort.
DoorDash: Transfernation works with so many different organizations — corporations, restaurants, nonprofits, funders, and more. What’s your number one criteria in assessing the value of a partnership?
Hannah: Definitely value-add. Any partnership has to have equal value for all parties involved. Our process is hinged on the idea that you shouldn’t have to give up anything to participate. Rather, you should be benefiting — financially or otherwise — through your participation.
Food donors are able to write off thousands of dollars in tax deductions for food that would have otherwise been garbage. Transporters and Dashers get paid to complete pickups and deliveries, and shelters/soup kitchens have access to high-quality food that they would have otherwise never been able to afford.
The DoorDash partnership is a perfect example of a collaboration that brings tangible value to all sides of the equation.
DD: What does DoorDash enable for Transfernation that wouldn’t otherwise be possible?
Hannah: In our first few months working with Project DASH, we leveraged Dashers for about 280 deliveries totaling over 35,000 pounds of donated food. Recently, my team has worked to integrate DoorDash Drive into Transfernation’s iOS app to enable Dashers to be assigned in real time. First and foremost, that means that we can now offer on-demand food rescue pickups for any business in addition to our current clients’ regular recurring ones.
This also means that any NYC business can download the app (just re-released to Apple’s App Store!) and request a pickup for extra, untouched food. As soon as the donation is matched to a nonprofit that can accept it, a Dasher will be dispatched.
Project DASH enables us to maintain a 100% diversion rate. In other words, when there’s an eligible food donation, Transfernation can now meet the demand. Surplus food never gets left behind. This is especially important when it comes to prepared food that must be picked up and donated within a tight timeframe.
DD: Where is Transfernation available?
Hannah: Today we’re just in New York City, but within a year we’ll be in Washington, D.C., Boston, and LA. Right now we’re focused on developing relationships with food donors and nonprofits there. The hardest part — logistics — is taken care of, thanks to DoorDash and our other transportation partner, Cargo Bike Solutions.
DD: With Project DASH, we’ve observed that culture change is a necessary ingredient to growing the practice of food rescue with myths around food donation like it’s “illegal,” a “hassle,” or “unnecessary.” If you could launch a communications campaign related to food rescue tomorrow, what would be the number one message you’d want to put out into the world?
Hannah: It affects your bottom line. Food donation isn’t just “a good thing to do.” It’s also a sound financial decision.
Corporations and restaurants don’t fully realize the amounts that they’re throwing out until we start quantifying it for them. Unsurprisingly, it’s not standard practice to keep track of leftovers. Overproduction is nobody’s fault. It’s difficult to be able to predict how much you’ll need, but if you consistently have even dozens of pounds of uneaten prepared food at the end of the day, it is very likely that you’re losing a lot of money.
DD: How will Transfernation evolve, or is the goal to put yourself out of business?
Hannah: When it comes to food, I’d love to work ourselves out of the business. The ultimate goal of any food rescue initiative should be that we as a society develop enough of a consciousness around our waste that we cease to create it. Transfernation is a way to work towards this zero-waste culture. I envision it becoming a service that is so integrated into people’s lives that requesting a pickup for untouched food is a no-brainer. If we can make the process easy enough people will use it — and they have been. Now we just have to push it out so that people know they have this service at their fingertips.
Even if we did eliminate food waste culture, there will always be some type of waste to deal with. Transfernation is a logistics service that connects people with extra things to people who can use them. I definitely see us branching out.
DD: Most important question: What’s your favorite restaurant on DoorDash?
Hannah: Birds of a Feather!
Transfernation provides an easy way for NYC corporations, restaurants, and events to donate food. They’re teaming up to offer a discounted rate to DoorDash merchants. Contact to learn more. And even if you aren’t based in NYC or would like to learn about their other amazing food rescue partners, contact too!
Transforming Food Recovery with Transfernation was originally published in DoorDash on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.