📚 Terminology

Welcome to the Sharing Excess terminology guide! Whether you're a new volunteer, partner organization, team member, or just curious about how food rescue works, this page explains all the key terms you'll encounter.

Understanding these concepts will help you navigate our platform and contribute to our mission of fighting food waste.

🏢 Who's Involved

`Partner`

A partner represents one of the many organizations that participate in food rescue with us.

We have 2 main types of partners:

Donor Partners provide the food that we rescue and distribute.

Restaurants - Excess prepared food, ingredients nearing expiration
Grocery Stores - Products past sell-by dates but still perfectly good
Farms - Surplus produce, "ugly" fruits and vegetables
Wholesalers & Distributors - Large quantities of surplus food
Manufacturers - Overproduced items, packaging changes

Recipient Partners receive food and from Sharing Excess, and serve it to those who in need.

Food Banks - Large organizations that distribute to multiple smaller groups
Soup Kitchens & Shelters - Direct service to individuals and families
Community Organizations - Churches, nonprofits serving their neighborhoods
Schools - Student food programs and family support
Community Fridges - Free, accessible food storage for neighborhoods

`Location`

Because many of our partners have multiple locations, we use the location concept to represent a specific address where we pick up or deliver food. Each location belongs to exactly one partner - for example, a grocery chain with several stores, or a food bank with multiple distribution sites.

Why this matters: Each location might have different contact people, operating hours, or special instructions for food pickup/delivery.

`User`

Anyone who has an account on our platform. Different types of users can do different things:

Volunteers & Drivers - Pick up and deliver food, update impact data for rescues assigned to them (represented by permission level standard)
Partner Representatives - Track their organization's food donations or distributions, and manage their organization's profile and location information (represented by permission level partner, and a specific partner_id in their user record)
Sharing Excess Staff - Coordinate rescues, manage partnerships, analyze impact - essentially full access to the platform (represented by permission level admin)

🚛 How Food Rescue Works

`Rescue`

A food rescue represents the complete journey of food items moving from a donor to a recipient. This can often include multiple stops, and multiple transfers - for example, a single rescue might involve picking up food from 3 restaurants and delivering to 2 food banks.

We break down rescues into 3 main types:

Retail Rescue - The classic food rescue
- Completed by one driver in one single day, generally in a van or smaller vehicle
- Includes pick ups from local retailers and stores, and deliveries to local food banks and community organizations nearby
Wholesale Rescue - Rescues from inside a SE managed wholesale market
- Food is donated by a market vendor, or can be trucked in from a vendor outside the market
- Often involves hundreds or thousands of pounds of food, in pallets or large numbers of cases
- Can be distributed via recipient pickup, or via a SE driver delivering it to the recipient
- Can often take multiple days to complete, with food being split between many recipients
Direct Link - Remote donations coordinated by SE
- Generally from a large national donor, such as a produce company or government agency
- SE never "touches" the food - we coordinate with the donor to get the food to the recipient
- Can involve donor delivery, recipient pickup, or 3rd party trucking coordination

Rescue Status:

Scheduled - Planned but hasn't started yet
Active - Currently happening, drivers are out doing pickups/deliveries
Completed - All done! Food has been successfully rescued and distributed
Cancelled - Didn't happen (weather, partner issues, etc.)

`Transfer`

A single stop within a rescue. If a rescue is the master plan, transfers are the individual tasks that make it happen.

Transfers are also where we track the weight, description, and category of the food being rescued or distributed.

Collection Transfer - food going from a donor to SE

Distribution Transfer - food going from SE to a recipient

Why we track transfers separately: A single rescue might involve picking up food from 3 restaurants and delivering to 2 food banks. That's 5 transfers total (3 collections + 2 distributions) all coordinated as 1 rescue.

`Handler`

The person responsible for making a rescue happen. Usually a volunteer driver, staff member, or partner representative who physically goes out and moves the food.

🥕 Food & Impact Tracking

`Food Categories`

We organize all rescued food by a specific set of categories. This helps us understand what types of food we're saving, ensures proper handling, and most importantly allows us to more accurately calculate the retail and fair market value of the food.

Fresh Produce - Fruits, vegetables, herbs
Dairy Products - Milk, cheese, yogurt, butter
Bakery Items - Bread, pastries, baked goods
Meat & Fish - All proteins, fresh or frozen
Non-Perishable Items - Canned goods, pasta, rice, shelf-stable foods
Prepared & Frozen Foods - Ready-to-eat meals, frozen entrees
Mixed Items - Prepared foods with multiple ingredients
Other - Anything that doesn't fit the above categories

These categories are established by the ReFED organization, and are used by many other food rescue organizations.

`Weight Tracking`

We measure all rescued food by weight (in pounds) because it's the most accurate way to track our impact. When volunteers complete transfers, they record:

Total Weight - How much food was moved in total

Weight by Category - How much of each food type (produce, dairy, etc.)

Why this matters:

Shows our real impact in preventing food waste
Helps partners understand their contributions
Converts to "meals made possible" for easy communication (roughly 1.2 pounds = 1 meal)
Tracks environmental benefits like CO2 emissions prevented

Much larger quantities of food available
Often requires coordination with multiple vendors
May need special equipment or larger vehicles
Usually happens on specific days/times when surplus is identified

Sharing Excess