84.51° helps Last Mile Food Rescue combat food waste with data insights

At 84.51°, our data scientists help organizations make smarter decisions to achieve their goals — whether that means reaching business objectives or solving real-world problems that exist in our communities. 

Last Mile Food Rescue (LMFR) is a Greater Cincinnati food rescue organization on a mission to save good food and get it to those who need it most. Founded in 2021, the group connects food donors with nonprofits who serve the region’s food insecure, to fight food waste and help to end the hunger that’s closest to home.    As part of our ongoing efforts to “live our purpose” by using data for good, 84.51° recently volunteered to help LMFR gain a better understanding of the agencies they partner with, so the group can improve existing operations and grow to help even more people in need. 

Connecting for a cause  

As an LMFR advisory board member, 84.51° Chief Scientist Andrew Cron connected the organization with our data scientists and consumer researchers to design a project aimed at learning more about LMFR’s partnerships. The goals of the project were to get an understanding of how LMFR’s work is being perceived by the agencies they work with (quality/quantity of food received, room for improvement, suggestions and ideas, etc.) so they could make more data- and insight-driven decisions and identify opportunities for improvement. 

Together, the teams created a custom survey that was sent out to the agencies that work with LMFR —recipients of the food such as food pantries, soup kitchens, churches, etc. These groups were asked to provide information ranging from how many clients they serve per week, to what types of food they deem most important and how they rate the quality of the food they receive. 

About 50% of the agencies LMFR works with participated in the survey and shared their responses. 84.51° then analyzed those responses to evaluate the effectiveness of the partnerships, and created a custom report of findings for the LMFR team. Some of the key insights uncovered include:   

• The food types that agencies value the most are meat, produce and dairy, with meat being ranked as most important by 52% of agencies surveyed. 

• The majority of food LMFR delivers ends up being used by the agencies. But when food ends up needing to be thrown out, an alternative solution is partnering with other organizations such as farmers or even wolf sanctuaries to provide animal feed. 

• The majority of agencies have a capacity to take on over 100 additional pounds of food per week.  

These actionable insights are helping LMFR identify opportunity areas such as determining what types of foods agencies need most, and monitoring the quality of the food it routes to its partners. In addition, discovering that the agencies have capacity to take on additional food will become a key focus for LMFR, as the organization plans to rescue an additional one million pounds of food in 2023 beyond what was rescued in 2022.

Commitment to community

Looking forward, LMFR plans to repeat the survey in the future to track progress over time and to ensure that agencies have a means to provide feedback. 84.51° is also working with LMFR to build an interactive map/dashboard to learn more about food insecurity in the greater Cincinnati area.   

It’s all part of an effort to uphold 84.51°’s value of “living our purpose” by using data for good. When we apply advanced analytics and technology solutions in ways that can help people in need, we can make a positive impact on our whole community.