Cheetah is a wholesale grocery delivery startup, but their new side project involves putting street fridges full of food out in the open in San Jose and Oakland, California. The fridges are decorated with paintings of produce and are part of the company’s #FoodGiving Campaign to provide free food for those facing food insecurity exacerbated by the pandemic.
Inspired by similar initiatives in New York, Cheetah takes goods nearing their expiration dates, which they usually donate to food banks, and places them around their bay area community.
On any given day the fridges can be filled with eggs, vegetables, bread, or juice and make food security even more accessible by putting free nutritious food right outside people’s front doorsteps. “By placing the fridge in the street near nonprofit organizations or in public locations, anyone who has a need can step up to the fridge at their own convenience and take what they want,” said Na’ama Moran, Cheetah co-founder and CEO.
The fridges are restocked each week by company trucks as they go about their usual routes. Although prompted by the pandemic, Cheetah wants to make the fridges a permanent installment and even expand to place them in cities throughout the Bay Area where high housing costs and other challenges mean 870,000 people out of 8 million are food insecure.
