2022 Champion Award Winner
PROFILE OF A CHAMPION: GOODR
The Business of Fighting Hunger
Goodr and its CEO Jasmine Crowe-Houston were nominated and selected by fellow Georgia business leaders for their transformative business approach to fighting hunger and food waste. By leveraging technology and the power of logistics they offer businesses and municipalities a waste management solution that not only solves their food waste needs, but also tracks real-time environmental impact and delivers food to people who need it most.
“Early on I said that hunger wasn’t an issue of scarcity, but it was a matter of logistics,” says Jasmine Crowe-Houston, “At Goodr we solve that logistics problem for companies and help them get perfectly good to people who need it most. We make it simple and impactful for companies to join in the fight against hunger.”
Excerpts taken from the interview with Jasmine Crowe-Houston, Founder and CEO, Goodr
Solving Hunger with Logistics and Data Analytics
Early on I said that hunger wasn’t an issue of scarcity, but it was a matter of logistics. I read about how much food was going to waste and saw first-hand all the people that were going hungry. What I realized food waste is a logistical solution for businesses that have trash. Companies put food waste in a bin and a waste company picks it up and puts it in a landfill. I realized that I needed to solve that logistic problem for companies and help them get perfectly good food to people who need food. The early vision was a business that collects excess food, packages it up, labels it, and delivers it right to a nonprofit who can get it to people in need.
Implementing a People-First Value
When you put people first and you treat people well, the money will come, the profits will come. And that has always happened for us at Goodr. We’ve put people first, people love us, our customers love us, and they come back, and they continue to do business with us because we operate in that people first mentality. It’s so much more than just profit.
Pursuit of Dignity Influences Business Strategy
For Goodr, we offer dignity in the process by making sure that we provide families with access to foods that enable them to prepare full meals. There’s a big difference in this country between access to food and access to meals. We don’t want someone to get a box of food, get home and realize that there’s nothing they can make. For people who come into contact with Goodr, especially under our Hunger Relief Services, every time they meet us they receive seven to ten days’ worth of food. Dignity is felt across the entire scope of Goodr services.
The Secret to Start Up Success
Entrepreneurship is very hard. I think a lot of people champion that you go and be an entrepreneur, start your own business, run your own company, live your dreams, don’t go work for someone else and live their dreams. But it is tough and it’s lonely. You have other people’s livelihood in your hands. Your company’s success is responsible for people paying their mortgage, putting their kids through college, feeding their own families. That can be a lot to bear.
I think the secret to kind of staying power is doing something that’s bigger than yourself. And that’s how I keep going. Every single day we are really doing something that matters. We are helping people in their darkest hours, giving them hope, food and an opportunity to be their best selves.
