Food Connect is now saving 12,000 meals from hitting the trash can every month

Here’s a quick update from tech-enabled nonprofit Food Connect, which began as a passion project of former financial industry pro Megha Kulshreshtha: The food-security focused nonprofit is now preventing 12,000 meals from being wasted.

By partnering with restaurants, food vendors and local organizations like Philabundance, the org is able to draw a line between surplus food and those in need.

Generocity contributor Peak Johnson detailed how the organization went from a volunteer initiative to Kulshreshtha’s full time job and a source of employment for three full-time employees.

“I am excited to continue to build on our progress,” Kulshreshtha said. “There is still a lot of work left to do in this space and I invite everyone to work together so we can get more done. We have the technology, the systems, and the model to make real time collaboration in food rescue possible.”

Demand for the mobile-app-driven service, Kulshreshtha told Johnson, has led the org to delay parts of its tech development. Last year it held off on rolling out a feature that would have allowed food donors to take and submit photos of their donation directly from the app.

“Our technology needs to be serviced and we need to add feedback features so donations can be better matched and serviced,” Kulshreshtha said. “We’ve had to make tough decisions on holding off on some tech upgrades and we’ve held off on automation in certain areas until we are absolutely certain that the benefits of the automation will outweigh the costs.”