Part of the Food Policy Community Spotlight Series
Name: YourLocal
What they do: YourLocal wants to make reducing food waste as simple as tapping your phone. Launched in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, this past July, YourLocal lets users know when their favorite participating local eatery has food that may go to waste at the end of the day if it isn’t purchased. Users can buy the food straight from the app for a discounted price and pick it up during the posted window of time.
How they do it: YourLocal partners with neighborhood shops and offers a profitable solution to food waste by enabling restaurants to sell their surplus through an app-based marketplace. The shops can post any surplus food they have, generally in the mid to late afternoon, and participating customers receive notifications on their app. They then pick it up in person so the process is completely cashless.
Mission: To end food waste in shops across the United States, make quality food accessible to all, and create a community of socially driven users. YourLocal strives to be the leading platform for reducing food waste in shops while empowering consumers globally.
Latest project/campaign: YourLocal is growing daily, and is proud to have more than 4500 customer users and 25 participating shops.
Major Funding: Angel investors. They are looking for more funding in 2019.
Profit/nonprofit: For profit
Interesting fact about how they are working to positively affect the food system:
40 percent of food is wasted in the United States. Businesses in New York City alone produce more than 650,000 tons of food scraps annually. YourLocal wants to fix this. It is unique in that it offers a profitable solution for small businesses to partner with their community in order to fight food waste by sending customers physically to the shops, the app uses technology to connect local customers with local shops. Their main goal is to end retail food waste while providing access to quality at reduced cost to the consumer.
FACT SHEET:
Location:
WeWork
109 S 5th St
Brooklyn, NY 11249, USA
Core Programs: Developing a presence in Williamsburg and Greenpoint. They are looking into going into other Brooklyn and Queens neighborhoods and Manhattan in the near future.
Number of staff: 5
Number of volunteers: 0
Areas served: Currently in Willamsburg and Greenpoint, Brooklyn, but they are expanding into new areas.
Year Started: 2018
Director: Kasper Kastoft Nielsen
Contact Information: hello@yourlocal.org
