Omaha Food Rescue Saves 10 Million Pounds in 12 Years

When perfectly good food gets tossed while people go hungry, something's broken. Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue has spent 12 years fixing that problem in Omaha, rescuing more than 10 million pounds of food that would have otherwise ended up in landfills.

The organization's president and CEO, Lenli Corbett Kountze, recently shared the milestone with Pottawattamie County officials. She emphasized a crucial truth: nearly 120,000 people in the metro area experience food insecurity, not because there isn't enough food, but because it's not reaching the right people.

"We have enough food on the planet to feed people," Kountze told supervisors. "We have a terrible distribution system, not production."

Here's how Saving Grace bridges that gap: refrigerated trucks pick up high-quality excess perishable food from donors and deliver it within hours to nonprofit partners. No warehouses, no delays, just fresh food moving quickly from surplus to people who need it.

About 30% of all food in America goes unsold or uneaten. That wasted food doesn't just represent missed meals; it creates methane emissions as it rots in landfills, harming the environment while failing to nourish hungry communities.

The Ripple Effect

Last year alone, Saving Grace rescued 938,000 pounds of food across the metro. In Pottawattamie County specifically, the organization delivered 65,505 pounds to five local partner organizations, and every rescued pound stayed within the county to feed local families.

The model works because it's simple and fast. By moving perishable items immediately, Saving Grace ensures quality food reaches dinner tables instead of dumpsters. That speed matters for both food safety and maximizing nutritional value for families struggling to put healthy meals on the table.

The organization operates throughout the greater Omaha metropolitan area, turning what grocery stores, restaurants, and suppliers can't sell into what families desperately need. It's proof that solving hunger doesn't require growing more food; it requires smarter systems to share what we already have.

Twelve years and 10 million pounds later, Saving Grace continues turning waste into hope, one refrigerated truckload at a time.