Replate - Everyone Eats

Maen Mahfoud - Our Founder + CEO

After coming to the U.S. from Syria to pursue medicine at UC Berkeley, Maen Mahfoud was shocked to see the level of poverty and hunger that permeates the Bay Area. When he learned that the U.S. wastes 40 percent of the food produced and saw so many people around him struggling to get a meal, he was inspired to make a change. Maen understood that food waste is a solvable problem and what people consider “waste” is oftentimes still edible and nutritious food. He decided to start reaching out to companies himself and pick up their surplus food to donate to nearby nonprofits.

Replate is committed to alleviating food insecurity and edible food waste by connecting sources of surplus with people in need. We have built a seamless and efficient infrastructure to move surplus food from businesses to nonprofits (B2B) and individuals houses (B2C). Our goal is to scale this technology to all major urban cities in the US to help deliver nutritious food to people while combating harmful environmental effects of wasted food in landfills. 

Helping people have consistent access to food will remove the invisible barriers folks experience when on the path to upward mobility. 

Having food to eat is a basic human right that so many people are lacking. We know eating nutritious food results in lowered stress levels, supports good health, and combats diseases. Reducing food insecurity elevates humanity by providing the basic sustenance that is the fuel for a healthy life and the empowerment to contribute to society. 

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, 42 million American experienced food insecurity. Now, that number has increased due to the millions of newly unemployed Americans, school shutdowns, and many social assistance programs being closed or reduced. The people affected by food insecurity are not just people who are experiencing homelessness, but it includes teachers, essential workers, senior citizens, college students, childrens, artists, and more. Food insecurity affects the health and livelihood of the people in our community and is often an invisible barrier to living a full life. 

Meanwhile, millions of pounds of edible food is wasted every year. This food ends up in landfills and creates harmful methane gas that is contributing to our changing climate. Project Drawdown recently rated reducing food waste as the #1 way to combat climate change. Much of the food we waste is edible, nutritious, and additionally wastes the precious resources that went into producing the food. 

One of the problems lies in the distribution  and redistribution of food. There is a lack of infrastructure to connect the food to people who can absorb it. Replate’s technology bridges the gaps between the edible surplus food and the folks who can consume it.

Replate is building the infrastructure to alleviate some of the food insecurity problems we’re facing in the current crisis and for the future through our technology, paid drivers, and strong partnerships. Between our B2B and B2C operations, we can efficiently get food to folks where they are at while helping businesses reduce their edible surplus food. To reach our goal, we need to strengthen our technology to handle larger volumes, implement a matching algorithm to streamline deliveries, increase our partnerships with food donors, and hire more drivers to absorb the increased volume. 

How it works: a donating business creates an account, sets the date/desired time for a food donation pickup, and inputs the type and quantity of food being donated. Drivers are dispatched to the donation pickup location and matched with a nearby recipient organization or individuals’ home. Recipient organizations or individuals can sign up on Replate’s website to request food donations to be delivered on specific days. 

We have a paid fleet of drivers to perform reliable deliveries. We partner with DoorDash to service any food donation request that comes through our system, we are not limited by geography. We capture important metrics to track environmental and social impact.

Our program is aimed to serve the 42 million people who are experiencing food insecurity in the US, while combating sources of edible surplus food going to waste. More specifically, we are working to help folks directly in our communities with nutritious meals that will allow that to focus on other important issues in their lives. We work with community based organizations that serve youth and adults facing food insecurity, who are often low-income, experiencing homelessness, or face barriers to employment. The organizations include shelters, soup kitchens, youth programs, senior housing, citizen assistance programs, transitional housing, single resident occupancy units etc.

We work closely with community organizations to receive feedback about how well we are serving them and how we can improve our work to support them further.

While growing up in Syria, my mom used to cook a lot of extra food and asked my brother and me deliver meals on our bikes to neighbors in need during lunchtime. I used to hate it because it was in the mid-day heat, but mom was like, “You know you’ve got to make sure that we help our struggling neighbors.” We would come back and then have our lunch.

When I came to the Bay Area for university, I saw people digging into trash cans looking for a meal. I was frustrated that there are people who go hungry and sleep in the streets in such a wealthy country. I couldn’t understand how this was possible with all the technology available to solve the world’s biggest problems.

I recalled delivering food as a kid and asked myself why we couldn’t do that here. I started taking extra food from cafeterias and local restaurants and made deliveries to people experiencing homelessness or food insecurity. I could see the tremendous impact right away. I was volunteering at first and then built more of an automated platform to connect food donors with food recipients and increase our impact with help from students.

Food insecurity is close to my heart because of what my mom instilled in me as a kid, the idea of making sure others have food to eat before you eat. I grew up in a culture where cooking food was for more than just you and your family, we always cooked more than what we ate. My dad had a chicken coop and used to get bread and food scraps from others to feed to the chickens so nothing went to waste. Coming to the US, I saw that this culture didn’t really exist and people were going hungry despite the incredible wealth and abundance. Last mile delivery food delivery companies were beginning to take off at the time but they were leaving people out. 

Food waste and food insecurity shouldn’t exist together. It is a logistics problem that is solvable. I’m moved by the emotional parts of Replate’s work but even more by the ability to solve the inefficiencies of the system we’ve created. With the resources, knowledge, and technology available today, I feel excited about scaling our technology to feed the millions of people who experience food insecurity daily.

I believe I’m in a good position to deliver this project because of my leadership and the support of the full Replate team. I have led and grown our team for 4.5 years to develop a robust and scalable product that was created specifically to improve distribution of food and feed people. During these last four years, I, along with my team, have built strong and trusted relationships with the community organizations we serve, businesses we work with, and with the folks in our industry. 

We are supported by our expert Board of Directors, who have experience building and leading successful organizations. Our core team’s combined backgrounds contribute a wealth of knowledge and experience in the food, environment, and technology sector which will allow us to thoughtfully execute our mission. My unique management style has contributed to a company culture that encourages continued learning, questioning assumptions, reaching out for support, and setting ambitious but achievable goals. I am an active community connector with big ideas and the ability to inspire people to take action and ownership to accomplish goals.

When I was almost finished with studying medicine, I decided to change careers. I had worked very hard to come to the US, get into a good school, and had my family’s support to pursue a medical career. However, I had the idea for Replate and I knew I could reach my goal of alleviating food insecurity and food waste if I changed careers to pursue it. 

If I left medical school, I was going to have to face my family and their expectations. It was going to be difficult to leave the 6 years of school and hard work behind to follow and build something completely different.

I realized that it is ok to make bold decisions and changes in our lives to follow what we believe in. People may not like the decisions we make, but that shouldn’t stop us from taking the risk to pursue the goal you have in mind. I decided to make the bold career change to start Replate despite any pushback. Managing my family’s expectations was a small price to pay for building what I said I wanted to build and I have learned to be comfortable with risk and change.

At the start of Replate, it was just me building relationships with restaurants that had surplus food to donate and bringing the food in my car to recipients that wanted to redistribute it. I knew I needed more people to help me with this. I also knew that I didn’t have much to offer a team at the beginning (no shares, no stocks, etc.) It would be a challenge to acquire the type of talent we needed to build a superb product with the competition of high salary Silicon Valley businesses. The thing I did have was the ability to inspire people to help reach the goal. That’s how I built the team we have now. 

I learned that if you have a strong idea and the passion, determination, and compassionate storytelling, you can attract quality talent that cares about how they can help people in our community live a better life, while simultaneously helping the environment and support an evolving food system. We continue to gain talented team members, inspired by making a difference and being a part of a team that truly cares about the work they do.

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