Tuesday Project Spotlight: Goodr

THE PROBLEM

“USDA’s Economic Research Service (ERS) defines food loss as the edible amount of food, postharvest, that is available for human consumption but is not consumed for any reason. It includes cooking loss and natural shrinkage (for example, moisture loss); loss from mold, pests, or inadequate climate control; and food waste.”1

“While the world wastes about 1.4 billion tons of food every year, the United States discards more food than any other country in the world: nearly 40 million tons — 80 billion pounds — every year. That’s estimated to be 30-40 percent of the entire US food supply, and equates to 219 pounds of waste per person. That’s like every person in America throwing more than 650 average sized apples right into the garbage—or rather right into landfills, as most discarded food ends up there. In fact, food is the single largest component taking up space inside US landfills, making up 22 percent of municipal solid waste.”2

THE PROPOSED SOLUTION

Source: WABE.

“It all started with a simple question: Why, when we live in a world with so much food waste, are people still going hungry? The more Jasmine Crowe thought about it, the more she wanted to know. Where was the food waste going? How much was there? Was there a way to divert it to the people who need it most? With $300 and a passion for making a difference, Jasmine set out to answer those questions.”3

Goodr believes that hunger is not a scarcity issue. Rather, it is a matter of logistics.4 Goodr solves the logistical issues by taking food that would otherwise goto landfills and redirecting it to nonprofits who distribute the food to people experiencing food insecurity. “The company also works directly with cities and governments to purchase quality food for certain communities.”5

HOW IT WORKS

Goodr’s solution not only takes surplus food and delivers it to people in need, but also uses blockchain technology to provide a secure ledger; tracking an organization’s surplus food waste from pickup to donation and offering real-time social impact reporting analytics.

“The company also works with organizations in compliance with the Internal Revenue Service through its blockchain enabled platform to increase companies’ bottom lines from their charitable donations[.]“6

At press time, there was a “Temporary Suspension of Limits on Charitable Contributions” which allowed a corporation “to deduct qualified contributions of up to 25 percent of its taxable income. Contributions that exceed that amount can carry over to the next tax year. To qualify, the contribution must be: a cash contribution; made to a qualifying organization; made during the calendar year[.]”7

Additionally, again, at press time, there was a “Temporary Increase in Limits on Contributions of Food Inventory” providing a “special rule allowing enhanced deductions by businesses for contributions of food inventory for the care of the ill, needy or infants. The amount of charitable contributions of food inventory a business taxpayer can deduct under this rule is limited to a percentage (usually 15 percent) of the taxpayer’s aggregate net income or taxable income. For contributions of food inventory[,] business taxpayers may deduct qualified contributions of up to 25 percent of their aggregate net income from all trades or businesses from which the contributions were made or up to 25 percent of their taxable income.”8

Thus, because Goodr uses immutable blockchain technology, companies can prove to the IRS precisely how much they donated and avoid the prospect of future accusations of fraud.

Source: Goodr.

PROJECT SUCCESS STORIES

Truth be told, the Bchain Blog could feature Goodr for a solid month of Tuesday Project Spotlights and would only scratch the surface of all the good they do, so here is a snapshot of just a few of their success stories.

Surplus Food Recovery

[Left] With numerous restaurants operating, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta Airport has made a phenomenal impact in the College Park/South Atlanta community which suffers from food insecurity in both adults and children. By working with Goodr to donate their surplus food, they were able to give 131,392 meals to those in need and divert 157,670 pounds from landfill.9

[Right] Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC) is the fourth largest convention center in the world, hosting more than one million guests every year. As their official food recovery partner during the 2019 Super Bowl, Goodr was able to amplify the GWCC’s food waste efforts with a total of 79,500 pounds of food diverted from landfill and 42,000 meals provided to those in need.10

Pop-Up Grocery Markets

[Left] In an effort to reduce the food insecurity gap and support families during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Wellstar Health System and Goodr joined forces to provide a series of pop-up grocery stores from February through July 2021. The kick-off for this series took place at the Wellstar Development Center in Cobb County in November 2020. The community partners included Calumet Park Neighborhood Association, First Presbyterian Church of Douglasville, McEachern United Methodist Church, Roswell Organization for Community Development, New Mercy Community Services, C.H.O.I.C.E.S., and CareLink.

[Right] As part of NBA All-Star 2021 and the NBA’s collective support for communities of color, the NBA, in partnership with the Atlanta Hawks, City of Atlanta, Kaiser Permanente, and Goodr created 16 full-service grocery pop-ups in communities across metro Atlanta on Saturday, March 6, 2021.

Goodr Grocery Store

WHERE TO LEARN MORE

If you want to hear directly from Goodr’s amazing founder and CEO Jasmine Crowe, and, as a member of EY’s Entrepreneurial Winning Women North America Class of 2021, you should, check out the video of her TEDWomen 2019 talk below.

For more video content, you can subscribe to Goodr’s YouTube channel.

And, of course, you can connect with Goodr on Twitter and Instagram for regular updates.

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