As a professor, John Lowrey has spent years studying how food donations move from grocery stores to food banks, and he thinks he has found a way to increase that volume.
He developed an app called FoodALERT, designed to make it easier for food banks and retail grocers to communicate about food-rescue opportunities. The app would connect independent food banks, Feeding America food banks, and large retail donors under one platform.
Many food banks follow set schedules for pickups regardless of weekly changes in a store’s customer activity, leading them to potentially miss out on unexpected donations. FoodALERT would allow stores to notify local food banks or pantries immediately of a donation opportunity, with a picture and line items of the product.
“The whole premise of it is based on the ease of donation, allowing donors to take a snapshot of what’s available to donate from the phone,” said Lowrey, who is Assistant Professor of Supply Chain & Information Management and Health Sciences at Northeastern University.
The app would fill a data gap, he said, in which food banks and food pantries don’t know where or when extra donations are immediately available. He expects such excesses of unsold food may pile up in the coming months, given the Trump Administration cuts that are preventing millions of people from using their SNAP dollars to purchase groceries. “I genuinely think there’s a big opportunity for more volume if food banks have the data” on how much food is actually available day-to-day, he said. “The problem is they don’t have the data.”
Given their capacity constraints, food banks could use all the help they could get to collect food. With the app, independent food banks could supplement the pickup schedule of the existing Feeding America food banks, thus adding pickup capacity to the broader network, Lowrey said. “For this to work, we need both Feeding America and independents to come to the table and work together,” he said.
FoodALERT is a tiny player, especially compared to MealConnect, the nationally recognized food rescue app created by Feeding America. Since its launch in 2014, MealConnect has facilitated the rescue of more than seven billion pounds of food. (Food Bank News last wrote about MealConnect here.)
Lowrey sees FoodALERT being complementary to MealConnect. “If one technology platform could connect everyone and provide a high service level to the retail store, it’ll outperform MealConnect, because MealConnect is limited to Feeding America partners,” he said.
Lowrey also has a plan to work around contractual obligations between donors and food banks, like allowing Feeding America partners a right of first refusal before offering a donation to an independent food bank. Such a solution could help donors reach “100% donation” of their unsold products.
FoodALERT also markets features that make the donation process easier for donors than other apps do. Artificial intelligence is integrated into the posting process, so when donors snap a picture of their product, estimated weight and line items are generated without needing to physically weigh anything. The app can also generate a tax receipt for donors and provide a timestamp of all the pickup logistics and outcomes.
Once the donation is posted, a dynamic scoring system also allows donors and receivers to score each other, influencing the matching algorithm in the app for later donations. “If the pantry, for example, accepts a donation but then doesn’t show up,” he said, “that affects their subsequent match scores in future matches.” Ease of donation and dynamic matching is ultimately what differentiates FoodALERT from other apps, Lowrey said. – Sidney Slon
Sidney Slon is a graduate student at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY. He is a 2026 summer intern at Food Bank News, and has previously reported for the New York City News Service, U.S. News and World Report, and City Limits.
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