# Helping surplus food find a home.

[All our work](https://bluebird.tech/work)

FoodRecovery.org · Nonprofit & sustainability

Sole development partner since 2023 to the nonprofit connecting food donors with local organisations across the US and Canada.

App engineering · Platform maintenance · Rebrand rollout · Notifications and reporting · Admin tools

Evidence

**267M** · Pounds of food donated and redistributed to date, as published by FoodRecovery.org

The engagement

## FoodRecovery.org

**Case:** 03

**Sector:** Nonprofit & sustainability

**Formerly:** MEANS

**Scope:** App engineering · Platform maintenance · Rebrand rollout · Notifications and reporting · Admin tools

Technology

Ruby on Rails · PostgreSQL · Sidekiq · Twilio · SendGrid

## The context

Good food goes to landfill while people nearby go hungry, and FoodRecovery.org treats that as a failure of logistics, not supply. Founded in 2015 as MEANS Database, it matches businesses holding surplus food with local nonprofits that can use it, from a few boxes to a full truckload. When a donor posts food, partners are alerted and claim it, and each donation has to hold up later in tax receipts and impact reporting. Bluebird became its sole development partner in 2023.

## Our contribution

We maintain and extend the operational site and app, working closely with FoodRecovery.org’s team. We carried the rebrand from MEANS through the product and rebuilt the donation form so that a single donation can hold many items, then moved notifications, reporting and admin tools onto that model. Nonprofit sign-up now checks an EIN against IRS records as you type. Donation alerts go out by text and email, and admins can see what was delivered and opened. The Large Donations team has its own report and imported history, covering weight, fair market value, estimated emissions offset and people served. Underneath, we keep the platform current, with regular Rails and Ruby upgrades, a modern asset pipeline and consistent role-based permissions.

## The result

The platform has kept pace as the organisation has grown. FoodRecovery.org reports recovering more than 52 million pounds of food in 2023 and more than 81 million in 2024, and in 2025 its Large Donations team distributed food in all 50 states for the first time. It now counts 4,400 partners. Those are its achievements, and our part is keeping the software they run on dependable. We remain its sole development partner, with regular releases and more on the way.

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## Background sources

Original engagement material and client information. These links open in a new tab.

[FoodRecovery.org: our story and impact](https://foodrecovery.org/about)

[FoodRecovery.org: recovery by year](https://foodrecovery.org/blog/our-story)

[FoodRecovery.org: the 2025 50-state milestone](https://foodrecovery.org/blog/foodrecovery.org-large-donations-team-made-history-in-2025-with-50-state-food-distribution-sweep-as-the-nation-celebrates-america250-this-fourth-of-july-the-organization-reflects-on-a-landmark-achievement-that-embodies-the-power-of-unity-and-service-across-all-50-states.)

Source: https://bluebird.tech/work/foodrecovery