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American consumers waste 133 billion pounds of food every year.
Not only would this wasted food help feed families struggling with hunger, food waste accounts for 27 percent of landfills, and contribute to methane emissions. About $218 billion dollars per year is spent on the production, transportation and removal of uneaten food, according to data from the Natural Resources Defense Council.
A company called Goodr is working to combat that — using blockchain technology.
Since January 2017, Goodr has helped businesses and restaurants in Atlanta arrange for leftovers to be sent to local charities using the company's app. Founder and CEO Jasmine Crowe recently told CNBC's "Power Lunch" that businesses can schedule pick-ups and track deliveries, as well as read data about the type of food waste they're producing — and how to reduce it.
Peter Dazeley | Getty Images
Via the app, businesses signal when they have excess food to deliver, package it, and track it as it is sent to local non-profits.
The company uses blockchain to keep a data ledger for their clients of how much food businesses waste, and where they might be losing money. Data collected by the company includes information on what food gets wasted the most, community connections and environmental impacts. With all that information, Crowe hopes to eliminate surplus food.
"Our hope is definitely like most social good companies, is that we're able to work ourselves out of business," Crowe said. "But one of the things that we do see is that there's really not a lot of predictability in large scale food service."
Although Goodr charges the businesses like any other waste management system, charities receive the food free of charge.
The idea for Goodr became imperative to Crowe after she witnessed one of her friends struggling with food security. Crowe was working as an independent philanthropy consultant while helping to donate food to local homeless shelters.
"Having experienced that first hand really shifted perspective for me, because for years I was feeding members of our homeless community," Crowe said. "I didn't understand that the face of hunger was readily changing."
Goodr services a variety of businesses across Atlanta, including Hartsfield-Jackson Airport, Ponce City Market, Georgia World Congress Center and Turner Broadcasting Systems. Crowe said she is hoping to expand to Seattle, Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Miami, Dallas, Houston and San Francisco by the end of 2019.
