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Chicago Food Rescue Cuts Waste, Helps Needy With Grass-Roots Effort
- Bob Benenson
- 5 hours ago
- 6 min read
Just 18 Months Old, Non-Profit Transfers 125 Tons of Surplus Food in 2025
Researchers have determined that about 40 percent of the food produced in the United States goes to waste.
At the same time, there are many millions of Americans who are dealing with food insecurity or outright hunger — and their numbers appear destined to grow, in the wake of federal legislation, enacted under the current administration, that has provisions to cut spending under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
There is, fortunately, a network of non-profit organizations that accept donations of food that otherwise might go to waste, providing nutrition for people in need while reducing the environmental impact of surplus food dumped into landfills. Food banks, such as the Greater Chicago Food Depository, play high profile roles in these efforts.
But there are also smaller “food rescue” organizations that develop relationships with retail stores, restaurants, farmers/farmers markets and others to collect their surplus food and distribute it to food assistance organizations in their networks. Letisha (Tish) Steele led Denver Food Rescue in Colorado’s capital city before she moved to Chicago last June to become executive director of Green City Market, widely regarded as the city’s premier farmers market organization.
Her new hometown has its own Chicago Food Rescue (CFR) organization. It was founded in September 2024 by Jake Tepperman — a native of Munster, Indiana (just across the Illinois border) — who worked in food rescue in Pittsburgh before returning to his home area.
In January he hired his first staff member: Hannah Roucher, director of food recovery, who formerly worked with the Greater Chicago Food Depository and with the Common Threads non-profit providing food and nutrition education to youths.
Here is how the organization explains its mission: “CFR bridges the gap between food waste and food insecurity in our city. We aim to make good food accessible to anyone in need, free of charge, wherever they are. We believe that no one should go hungry when there is an abundance of food available. We strive to create a more equitable and more sustainable food system in Chicago by connecting excess food with those in need.”
The organization, just 18 months old, has already made a significant impact. According to its report for 2025, Chicago Food Rescue:
Recovered 250,113 pounds of food (which they describe as the equivalent of 208,000+ meals)
Completed 1,040 rescues with a network of 98 active volunteers
Received donations from 75 food partners
Distributed food to 79 nonprofit recipient partners
LaShawn Miller is founder of Finding Justice A Flower and Vegetable Garden, a mission-driven urban farm in Chicago’s West Garfield Park neighborhood. She also serves as policy organizer for Illinois Stewardship Alliance, the state’s premier non-profit policy advocate for the local food and farm community.
Here is how LaShawn describes her organization’s relationship with Chicago Food Rescue:
Finding Justice A Flower and Vegetable Garden connected with Chicago Food Rescue through our shared commitment to making sure good food reaches people instead of going to waste. Through this partnership, we receive donated food that we distribute directly to residents at our farm site, community markets, and local food banks, helping expand access to fresh food on Chicago’s West Side. At the same time, when we have surplus or unsold produce, we work with Chicago Food Rescue to ensure that food grown or available through our network continues moving to communities where it is needed most.
This relationship strengthens our community by creating a two-way system of support that reduces food waste while increasing food access. Chicago Food Rescue helps extend the reach of our work beyond our immediate neighborhood, ensuring that nutritious food circulates throughout the city and supports families, community organizations, and meal programs. Together, we are helping build a more efficient, collaborative, and equitable local food system.
Chicago Food Rescue definitely has had early success but is seeking more partners to expand its efforts. “We're looking for more volunteers. We're looking for more food donors. We're working to collaborate with chefs,” said Hannah. "One of my other dreams is to really build out our chef partnerships and maybe build out some sort of recipe bank using food scraps and trying to educate people on how to prevent food waste in their homes also.”
She added, “We're always looking for recipients. Obviously, the need is so high, but anyone who wants to collaborate, we're very interested.”
If you are interested in participating, click the first button below to send an email to Chicago Food Rescue, and the second to visit the organization’s website. Then continue scrolling for takeaway quotes from my recent conversation with Jake and Hannah.
Interview Excerpts
Jake Tepperman: It's really a pretty simple model. Hannah and I get notified or figure out where excess food is, and we then send volunteers to pick that food up directly at the donor site. The donor uses an app that notifies the volunteers where and when that food is available. The app then gives them instructions where and when to deliver the food directly... We don't have a warehouse space. There is no food banking, food storage. It's immediate point to point food distribution and food access. The volunteer drops it off with a contact at the nonprofit partner site, they receive the food, and then they distribute it from there, using it how they want and how much volume.
Hannah [on who the food donors are]: It's really anyone who is a food provider or food distributor...
Jake: The only things that we do not rescue are foods that have been set up on a self-serve buffet, or food that's coming from a private residence, somebody cooked a meal at home. There's just too many food safety concerns with that. But other than that, if the donor can attest that the food has been cooked and stored and served properly and safely, happy to pick it up and find a home for it.
Hannah: A big goal of mine, especially as it's starting to get warmer, is really to start building relationships with more farms that I know. I feel lucky to know about so many of these local food producers from my past jobs... whether that's urban farms or a little bit farther out... Due to our model, we really try and keep it hyperlocal...
Jake [on the benefits of relying on a network of volunteers]: Having a fleet of trucks or refrigerated vans is a cost-intensive model that requires a lot of capital, not only for the vehicles, maintenance of vehicles, but also staff. The benefit of having volunteers is that we can quite literally be in 100 places at once and scale out and build out a network. That way, no volunteer has to save all the food in Chicago at once. But if everybody saves a carload or fills the trunk of their car with some excess food and takes it to a nonprofit, we can rescue quite a bit of food, 250,000 pounds in a year...
Right now we're pretty strictly in the city of Chicago. We would love to expand out to some of the close suburbs, but really we want to build our volunteer base so we're reliably serving the entire city of Chicago. We do on occasion accept large donations from outside the city if the donor is able to deliver, or we can on occasion work with a third party logistics provider to pick the donation up, but we're never going to ask our volunteers to pick up a donation that's in the suburbs and deliver it back into the city.
Hannah: Even if there's no direct way that we could partner with someone right now, we want to and are open to talking and meeting everyone, building that trust and becoming a face in different neighborhoods, and setting those partnerships now. So when things do come up, we have those to rely on, and can help out, when the need is there...
Chicago has an incredible community of food, just an incredible food justice community... Since all of the SNAP cuts and just everything over the past couple of years, it's really been incredible to see everyone show up for each other and come out and just see the amazing work that everyone is doing and figuring out how we can all collaborate and work best to support each other, because there are people who have been doing this for so many years and in all of our specific communities.