Case Study: City Harvest saves 500K hours and increases pantry engagement 4X with Twilio

How City Harvest Improved Engagement and Access at Nyc Food Pantries

City Harvest, a New York City nonprofit that rescues over 66 million pounds of food yearly and partners with roughly 400 pantries and kitchens, faced growing operational strain: outdated schedules, long outdoor wait lines in bad weather, unclear hours, and limited ways to reach clients—problems that intensified as demand rose during the COVID-19 crisis.

City Harvest and partners launched Plentiful and added a Twilio-powered SMS flow (text FOOD to PANTRY) so clients can schedule pickups, get updates in nine languages, and receive pantry alerts. The text-first approach boosted engagement 4X over the app, cut average wait times by 45 minutes, saved over 500,000 hours of waiting, drove a 475% increase in messages sent, saw 62% more clients texting during COVID-19, and has supported nearly 2 million pantry visits with an NPS of 57.

City Harvest

Rebeckah Piotrowski

Director of Institutional Partnerships