Nonprofit Leadership Podcast
Episode: How a Small Group of College Students Launched a National Movement
Host: Dr. Rob Harter
Guest: Aidan Riley, Co-Founder of The Farmlink Project
Date: December 1, 2025
Episode Overview
This episode highlights the remarkable origin and rapid growth of The Farmlink Project—a nonprofit founded by college students linking farm food waste with communities facing food insecurity. Dr. Rob Harter holds an in-depth discussion with Aidan Riley about the project's explosive impact, the underlying challenges of food waste and hunger in the U.S., and the vital role of collaboration, policy, and innovation in building a fairer food system.
Key Discussion Points & Insights
1. Origins: Student Initiative in a Time of Crisis
[04:36 – 07:42]
- The Farmlink Project was sparked during the COVID-19 lockdown in 2020, when college juniors Aidan Riley and his friend sought to help their Los Angeles community.
- Initial volunteering at a local food bank revealed not a shortage of help, but a critical shortage of food—demand surged from 300 to 1,000 families a week.
- Aidan noticed a parallel crisis: farmers dumping food due to cut contracts as documented in the New York Times.
- Leaning on “a naive idea,” they directly called local farmers to ask for surplus food, facing many rejections until finally securing eggs and onions.
- They rented a U-Haul, painted it with "Farmlink," and delivered 60,000 eggs to the food bank.
- Within a month, their growing team, organized into specialized groups ("Deal Team Six" for logistics), had rescued and distributed 1 million pounds of food.
“We basically made a big Google sheets list, had a bunch of friends help us call all the farmers... We got hung up on a million times.”
—Aidan Riley [06:00]
- Media coverage quickly followed, catalyzing further expansion as farmers across the country sought their help.
2. Building Scalable Systems & Strategic Partnerships
[07:42 – 13:44]
- Rapid scaling led Farmlink to become a national connector, moving over 350 million pounds of food (soon to be 500 million).
- Their approach leverages existing supply chain infrastructure—farms, food banks, warehouses, and cold storage—serving as the “connective tissue.”
- A notable initiative was rescuing 50 million apples in West Virginia, distributing across 27 states—demonstrating system-level logistics and immediate aid to disaster-stricken areas.
“Our service … we just want to help provide that connective tissue between all these existing organizations.”
—Aidan Riley [09:59]
- Farmlink collaborates with major networks (e.g., Feeding America) and small, independent food banks, consistently prioritizing access for marginalized communities (farm workers, Indigenous, rural areas).
- The team’s philosophy: “We work with all,” even if it requires airlifting food to remote locations.
“We've hung pallets of food from helicopters ... We kind of stop at no end to say we're going to get this food where others can't.”
—Aidan Riley [13:27]
3. Why Good Produce Still Goes to Waste
[14:12 – 16:18]
- There’s no single party to blame—waste results from a complex mix of consumer preferences (frequent rejection of cosmetically imperfect food), unpredictable markets, and weather.
- Often, surplus food is already packed and on trucks; minor issues prompt entire loads to be rejected by retailers.
- Farms have historically defaulted to dumping due to lack of alternative systems for rapid, large-scale donation.
“If there's another [avocado] that's right next to it, the consumer preferences really, really shape the markets… At that point on the truck, you can't really figure out where it's gonna go. You got 24 hours or less…”
—Aidan Riley [14:32]
- Farmlink’s mission: Make donation easier than dumping.
4. Measuring & Communicating Social and Environmental Impact
[17:28 – 23:06]
- Donors increasingly demand tangible, “venture capital-like” results.
- While volume (pounds of food moved) is important, Aidan stresses the need for consistent, sustainable, and stigma-free access to communities.
- Farmlink is developing capacity mapping technology to improve visibility and efficiency within the supply chain—tracking what food banks need and when.
- Climate impact is central: preventing food waste stops methane emissions—a bigger factor than all airline emissions combined.
“If food waste were a country, it would be the second largest emitter, just behind China.”
—Aidan Riley [21:33]
- Farmlink created its own, independently-verified method to calculate emissions prevented, enhancing credibility.
5. Role of Technology (AI) in Scaling
[23:06 – 24:44]
- Despite massive throughput (150 million pounds/year), Farmlink operates with under 10 staff.
- Growth to 1 billion pounds/year is targeted without ballooning staff numbers—AI and back-end automation will optimize logistics while maintaining personal connections with farmers and food banks.
“We don't need a team of 500, we need a team of 30, 35 people and we can be moving a billion pounds of food.”
—Aidan Riley [24:31]
6. Vision: Working to Make Themselves “Unnecessary”
[25:36 – 28:47]
- Farmlink’s ultimate goal is “to help put ourselves out of business” by creating a system where overproduction is managed and hunger is eliminated.
- Policy and (public-private-nonprofit) partnerships are essential—e.g., West Virginia’s Department of Agriculture funded rescued apples, keeping generational farms solvent and ensuring wide distribution.
- Proving and piloting such programs aims to spur government adoption and wider, systemic change.
“If Farmlink is providing a billion pounds of food a year, 15, 20 years from now, that means there's still massive overproduction and... significant need.”
—Aidan Riley [25:51]
7. Practical Steps & Collaborations for Zero Waste
[30:10 – 31:21]
- Everyone has a role: individual choices, corporate leadership, and policy can all reinforce one another.
- Change accelerates when corporations sense broad public support, which then nudges policy advancement.
- Personal action matters, but scale comes from institutional shifts.
8. Overcoming Challenges in Scaling Up
[32:23 – 36:21]
- Recent federal funding cuts have deeply impacted community partners, doubling or tripling need almost overnight.
- Farmlink’s crisis-oriented origins bred adaptability; requests for help now outpace even the height of the pandemic.
- Transitioning from an all-volunteer student network to a sustainable, professional nonprofit required maintaining relationships, knowledge continuity, and organizational pivots.
“The real learning stuff for me personally was ... when we were trying to turn this into... a real organization, not just a pandemic project.”
—Aidan Riley [35:40]
9. Future Strategy & Focus Areas
[36:54 – 39:06]
- Entering “chapter three,” Farmlink is honing in on:
- Deepening rather than widening impact
- Investing in infrastructure for local food banks (e.g., procuring forklifts as needed)
- Building a “third market” for surplus food using incentives and government partnerships
- Creating tech-driven predictability and visibility
- Prioritizing listening to community partners' needs
“It's not just about the amount of pounds. It's about, how are we going to leave this charitable food system better than we came into it?”
—Aidan Riley [37:20]
10. How to Get Involved / Learn More
[39:32 – 40:26]
- Visit farmlinkproject.org for information, to support fundraising (e.g., a current 10 million meal campaign), or to watch "Abundance"—their short documentary.
- Direct contact: aiden.riley@farmlinkproject.org
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
-
On naivete and action:
“We probably sat around and played Xbox for a and help no one. But we said, let's do something useful for our neighborhood... All it cost was the cost of the U-Haul rental. And we were like, oh man, this might actually work.”
—Aidan Riley, [04:40–06:38] -
On impact and scale:
“We're going to be around half a billion pounds of food that we may. So anyways, it's working and scaling really quickly.”
—Aidan Riley, [08:09] -
On working with everyone:
“Our philosophy is we work with all… we've hung pallets of food from helicopters... We kind of stop at no end to say we're going to get this food where others can't.”
—Aidan Riley, [13:18] -
On tackling systemic issues:
“You could get a million glasses of water out to people who needed it. But that's not changing the world. You got to dig a well.”
—Aidan Riley, [38:14]
Timestamps for Important Segments
- [04:36] — How Farmlink started during COVID lockdown
- [07:42] — Early systems, structure, and national scale
- [09:45] — West Virginia apple rescue case study
- [13:18] — Serving unreachable communities
- [14:12] — Why good food goes to waste
- [17:28] — Measuring impact and communicating with donors
- [21:33] — Food waste: An overlooked climate threat
- [24:31] — Tech and AI in scaling Farmlink
- [25:51] — The vision: making Farmlink unnecessary
- [32:23] — Challenges transitioning from student-run to sustainable nonprofit
- [36:54] — What’s next: infrastructure and community-first approach
- [39:32] — How listeners can learn more and get involved
Final Thoughts
Aidan Riley’s story illustrates the exceptional impact that passion and agile thinking can have—even when starting from scratch in a crisis. The Farmlink Project is not only feeding millions but also pioneering systemic change by demonstrating scalable, collaborative models and innovative thinking for hunger relief and sustainability. Their journey offers inspiration and practical lessons for nonprofit leaders aiming to scale, sustain, and eventually “work themselves out of business.”