Green Shoots & Big Shifts

40% of Our Food Is Wasted! -- Robert Lee, Rescuing Leftover Cuisine

September 2, 2026·20 min
Episode Description from the Publisher

Forty percent of the food produced in the United States gets thrown out, and the nutrition in a third of that waste is enough to end food insecurity. Robert Lee, founder of Rescuing Leftover Cuisine, left a finance job at JP Morgan to close that gap. He grew up as the second son of Korean American parents who struggled with food access, joined a student club at NYU that carried leftover dining hall food to shelters, and built that idea into an organization now rescuing food across all 50 states. Chapters: 00:00 Welcome and show intro 01:00 Robert's journey and what inspired RLC 02:46 What Rescuing Leftover Cuisine does 03:33 Scaling carefully and sustainable growth 06:03 Where RLC operates today 07:00 The scale of food waste 08:33 A food rescue story that stuck 10:02 How to donate food and how pickup works 10:58 Partners, shelters, and a school program 12:33 Launching the Every Bite app in Boston 13:33 What's next and making food rescue the standard 15:35 Advice for starting small and taking action 17:53 How Robert thinks about impact 19:53 One word to leave listeners with Learn more about Rescuing Leftover Cuisine: - Website - https://rescuingleftovercuisine.org - Download the Evrybite App: https://www.evrybite.com/download-evrybite

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