Something You Should Know - Bonus Episode: Saving the World One Meal At a Time

Episode Date: May 18, 2022

Two of the biggest problems facing the world today are hunger and food waste. So, what if you created a business that tackled both problems in a way that one helped solve the other?  That’s exactly what Jasmine Crowe did. Listen to this wonderful story about a woman who went from cooking meals in her kitchen to help hungry people in Atlanta to founding Goodr. (https://goodr.co).  Today Jasmine is not only helping feed hungry people all over the country but is tackling the problem of food waste in meaningful way.  Her story is inspiring and powerful . I am sure you will enjoy listening to it here. This bonus episode is part of the Dell PodFerence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Let Dell Technologies help safeguard your business with modern devices and Windows 11 Pro, so you can do more and we can all go forward together. Take two of the world's biggest problems, hunger and food waste, plus one woman's passion, desire and determination to solve those problems, and you have yourself a fascinating story, and it's one you can be a part of. It's the story of Jasmine Crowe and a company she started in her own kitchen

that now helps feed hungry people all over the U.S. while at the same time cutting down on food waste and keeping that food out of landfills. I'm Mike Carruthers, and this is Something You Should Know. At some point, I suspect you, and everyone else, has thought about how much food gets wasted in this country and around the world. I mean, you have to notice it. In restaurants, banquets, conventions, stores, food is left sitting around that eventually gets tossed out. And then there's the food that goes bad before anyone has a chance to eat it.

How much food? Well, estimates vary, but it's something like 80 billion pounds of food is wasted each year in the United States. That's equal to about 100 billion meals. And that doesn't include food that is thrown out in private homes. Add that in and the problem is even worse. But when you think about the size of this problem, what can one person do? And even if you wanted to do something, what would that be? And so generally, we don't do anything. Well, someone who has really done something about this problem is Jasmine Crow. She is founder of a company called Goodr,

spelled G-O-O-D-R, which she describes as a food waste management company, which helps to shift food that would otherwise go to waste and help feed people who are hungry. It's a business that is making a big difference in the lives of many, and it's powered by technology without which it couldn't happen. It started several years ago when Jasmine was cooking meals in her home to help hungry people in her community of Atlanta, Georgia. I was just feeding upwards know, feeding upwards to three to five hundred people every other week, and I was cooking all the food in my kitchen, and then a video of my work actually went viral on Facebook, and I woke up one morning,

and, you know, people were just saying, this is amazing, who donates the food, and the truth was nobody. I was couponing, price matching, you know, taking five, ten dollar donations and really just trying to figure out a way to make all this happen. Once the video went viral, Jasmine got a lot of interest from other people and this allowed her to take her passion of feeding hungry people and reducing food waste to a much higher level. Now Jasmine was going well beyond clipping coupons and cooking meals in her own kitchen. She now had a real business. The business model was that we were a food waste company.

We have food waste solutions as well as hunger solutions that we're operating. So under our hunger solutions, we host pop-up grocery stores. We have freestanding grocery stores that are located inside of schools and senior centers that are actually free for families, and we work largely with cities, celebrities, and large-scale enterprises to activate hunger solutions in different markets. And then under our food waste solutions, it's pretty much the same of what I mentioned before, except we added on organics recycling.

So if the food is non-edible, as opposed to taking it to an organization where people would eat it, we can take it to animal farms, we can compost it, or if it's enough food waste, we could turn it into energy. So we are essentially, you know, a food waste management company. So I want to tell you about something really exciting, and that is that this podcast, Something You Should Know, will be part of this year's Dell Technologies Small Business Virtual Conference, kicking off on May the 10th. Small businesses are ready to thrive again and looking for resources to rise to the challenge. That's why Dell Technologies has assembled an all-star lineup of podcasters

for the third year in a row to create a virtual conference to share advice and inspiration for small businesses. Whether you're still working remotely or you're back together again, let Dell Technologies help safeguard your business with modern devices and Windows 11 Pro. Search Dell Technologies Small Business Podference on Radio.com, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts starting May 10th. And be sure to tune in for our custom episode

airing May the 18th. You know, there's something very wonderful and inspiring about Goodr. Here they take two problems, two big problems, food waste and hunger, and they combine them into a solution where one problem solves the other. Rather than let so much food be dumped into landfills,

they divert that food and use it to feed people who are hungry. And Jasmine says one of the keys to making all the pieces work together is technology and their partnership with Dell. Yes, so we have teamed up with Dell. They are our official technology partner of Goodr. So everyone in our office, we have Dell monitors, Dell laptops, and they really just have helped us work. I mean, that's the biggest thing. We are constantly on our computers. We're constantly sending emails. We're constantly in Zoom meetings. We're constantly creating pitches and proposals

and trying to meet with new customers. So we're always doing this kind of work. And Dell's technology has just helped power that. We have done things like in one of our grocery stores, we have a recipe station, and there's a printer as well as a computer that we were provided by Dell where our senior citizens can go and look up recipes. So there's just so many different things that we've been doing. And Goodr has been innovating and creating their own technology to help their business grow. I mean, we have a mobile app. We have a dashboard. We have heat maps that we build to track our impact and our

data across the country and really where we're bringing food, where we're recovering food. So that's kind of been a lot of our work. Perhaps one of the best things about Goodr is that they make helping so easy for individuals, groups, and businesses. If, for example, you're a food-related company that throws out food, Goodr will partner with you. If you're an individual who just wants to volunteer and help feed hungry people, there are a lot of opportunities to partner with Goodr. If you have a non-profit, Goodr will work with you to help feed hungry people in your community. There are just so many ways you can get involved and make a difference. Now, when you look at all that Jasmine

Crowe and Goodr have done, it's clear that Jasmine's vision has evolved into a business that has had an impact on countless numbers of people. And Goodr continues to grow all the time. Still, despite all the donations that have come in, the business partnerships, the celebrities, and everyone else who has helped, Jasmine has come to realize the real key to Gooder's success. It was really just hard work. I mean, there definitely was some support from other, you know, companies began to get involved with us, but for certain, it was really just hard work more than anything else. Despite the extraordinary success of Goodr, Jasmine Crow remains motivated. I mean, when you take on two huge world problems like hunger and food waste,

there's a lot to do that never ends. Still, Jasmine Crow is a remarkable woman with a desire to make that never ends. Still, Jasmine Crowe is a remarkable woman with a desire to make the world a better place, a vision to do it, and a successful company that powers that mission. I'm Mike Carruthers, and that's something you should know. This segment is sponsored by Dell Technologies' Small Business Virtual Podference, starting May the 10th.

Whether you're still working remotely or back together again, let Dell Technologies help safeguard your business with modern devices and Windows 11 Pro.