Food Waste Fighters and Hunger Heroes

Forbes recently released their 2017 30 Under 30: Social Entrepreneurs list highlighting some great activists. I am so excited to see so many people that are fighting to mitigate food waste, reduce hunger and revamp the food system. Here are some of those awesome activists.

Ricky Ashenfelter- Cofounder, Spoiler Alert

Spoiler Alert’s mission is to ensure that no excess food goes to waste. The company works as an online marketplace for food donations and discount sales so that businesses, nonprofits and farms can sustainably deal with surplus food.

Tsechu Dolma- Founder, Mountain Resiliency Project

Tsechu founded the project in an effort to address the poverty and food insecurity common in mountain communities. The work focuses on creating stronger, more resilient communities from within in order to combat the impacts of climate change.

Jason Green and Matt LaRosa- Cofounders, Edenworks

These activists created an aquaponics system to aid in the farming of fish and plants in one place. It is a self-regulating system and it produces sustainable food, year round.

Kathleen O’Keefe, Kristof Grina, Jeff Prost-Greene- Cofounders, Up Top Acres

The company maintains four rooftop farms in Washington DC. This totals to one acre in farmland on which they grow and sell a variety of produce.

Evan Lutz- Cofounder, Hungry Harvest

Hungry Harvest works to purchase “ugly” and excess food from farms and delivers it to customers using a subscription-box based model.

Rachel Sumekh- Founder, Swipe Out Hunger

Swipe Out Hunger works to alleviate hunger by helping students donate unused meal points to feed food insecure peers and community members. Originally launched in 2010 at UCLA, it has since grown to 23 universities and it has provided 1.3 million meals.

Aditya Agarwalla- Cofounder, Kisan Network

Kisan Network functions as an online marketplace in India to facilitate sales between small scale farmers and institutional buyers, which lowers the costs for buyers and secures sales for farmers.

Amongst these activists are others working to solve crucial issues like water access, homelessness and other social justice issues.

This is an inspiring list. It leaves me feeling optimistic about the future and the future of food waste and hunger. It shows that no one is too young or too old to make a difference. With some innovation, hard work and passion, we can all truly impact the world.