Albertsons and Uber Expand Program Delivering Surplus Food to Nonprofits

Albertsons Companies and Uber Technologies have expanded a program in which they donate and deliver surplus food to local nonprofit organizations and food banks.

After being piloted in Washington, D.C., in 2023, the program has been expanded to Boston, Chicago and Denver, the companies said in a Tuesday (June 4) press release.

“We are thrilled to partner with Uber to streamline the delivery of excess food to our partner food recovery organizations, ensuring that the food donated from our stores gets to those who need it most,” Suzanne Long, chief sustainability and transformation officer at Albertsons Cos., said in the release.

This food rescue initiative was developed as part of the 2024 White House Challenge to End Hunger and Build Healthy Communities, according to the release.

In the program, surplus food donated by Albertsons Cos. stores is delivered to nonprofits and food banks by Uber’s white-label delivery solution, Uber Direct, the release said.

In the time since this initiative was launched in 2023, it has made more than 100 food donation deliveries to nonprofit organizations in the Washington, D.C., area, including The Father McKenna Center, House of Mercy and Tutoring Café, per the release.

“After a successful pilot in the Washington, D.C., region, we’re thrilled to continue to use our technology to improve the lives of community members in Boston, Chicago and Denver,” Julia Paige, head of global social impact at Uber, said in the release.

In another effort to prevent food waste, Too Good to Go offers an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform that makes recommendations to grocers on how best to move products that might otherwise be thrown out.

“We’re just at the beginning stages of all the different ways in which we can work with our partners to tackle the problem of food waste,” Chris MacAuley, U.S. managing director at Too Good to Go, told PYMNTS in an interview posted in January. “Large-scale AI and machine learning can drive all sorts of optimizations across our product set.”

Another solution is offered by Full Harvest, a B2B marketplace for surplus and imperfect produce aimed at reducing global food waste.

“We have farms that come on and post, and we have buyers that come on and look for things and let us know what they’re looking for,” Christine Moseley, founder and CEO at Full Harvest, told PYMNTS in an interview posted in January 2022.