2025 ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit

Evan Ehlers is the 29-year-old founder and executive director of Sharing Excess, a national nonprofit that rescues surplus food from wholesalers, grocers, and retailers and redistributes it to communities experiencing food insecurity. Since launching, Sharing Excess has rescued over 120 million pounds of food—equivalent to nearly $250 million in food value—serving millions across the U.S. and Latin America.

Evan’s journey began during college, when he donated his leftover meal swipes and realized the untapped potential of food redistribution. That experience inspired him to build a scalable solution that could fight both food waste and hunger on a national level.

Under Evan’s leadership, Sharing Excess became the first nonprofit to operate inside major wholesale produce markets like the Philadelphia Wholesale Produce Market and Hunts Point in NYC—recovering massive volumes of fresh food at the supply chain’s core. His model emphasizes efficiency, equity, and environmental impact, with a mission to build a more circular food system.

Evan’s work has been featured widely, including in a viral collaboration with YouTube philanthropist MrBeast, whose video spotlighting Sharing Excess reached over 23 million viewers and helped amplify the importance of food recovery to a global audience.

Evan brings a bold, systems-level perspective rooted in innovation, partnership, and lived experience—showing how a generation of changemakers can transform surplus into solutions.