A Faster Way to Feed Those in Need: Russia Launches a Digital Food Aid Platform

Making food aid collection and delivery transparent

Thanks to the new food aid technology platform, the foundation will be able to work with nonprofit organizations, partners, and donors within a single, unified digital environment.

Today, X5 is focused on building a system that automates key elements of charitable operations, including interaction with suppliers, partners, and volunteers. Another core objective is to digitize the mechanics of food aid collection, distribution, and delivery, making every stage of the process transparent.

A dedicated volunteer application is already in use. It simplifies food collection by automatically generating documentation, while collected goods are immediately recorded on the foundation’s balance sheet. The customer journey includes a special mechanism that ensures donations made at self-checkout counters or through the Vyruchaem foundation’s website are allocated to the same regions where they were collected. The foundation relies on a digital system for both retail and industrial food sharing, works centrally with suppliers, tracks product movement, and distributes aid accordingly.

The next step is the development of full-featured personal dashboards for all participants, further simplifying and accelerating the process. To date, more than 100 nonprofit organizations have registered on the platform. The total value of assistance provided has reached 200 million rubles (approximately $2.4 million), and more than 800,000 people have received support through the Vyruchaem foundation.

The food aid platform is a unique project for our sector, raising transparency in charity work to an entirely new level – one that we hope will become a new industry standard. We have already reduced paperwork and significantly increased the speed of response to requests from nonprofits and social services, ensuring that help arrives on time and is truly effective. This is a unified digital charity space that simplifies cooperation with stores, volunteers, nonprofits, and X5 partners nationwide. And, of course, it is a contribution to achieving Russia’s national development goals – helping reduce poverty while laying the groundwork for technological leadership

Anna Skorobogatova

President of X5’s charitable foundation Vyruchaem

Making it easier to become a donor

The creation of a dedicated technology platform for food charity is a logical continuation of X5’s long-term social strategy. As early as 2015, the company launched the “Basket of Kindness” initiative, through which hundreds of thousands of retail customers donated food to those in need. In 2022, X5 also introduced its Food Sharing project, aimed at rescuing products that are still safe for consumption just days before expiration and redirecting them for social use.

X5 consolidated all its charitable programs under a single organization, the Vyruchaem foundation, to strengthen food assistance and social initiatives. The new digital platform now serves as a unified resource for collecting and distributing aid across these programs.

The food aid technology platform significantly increases transparency in charitable activities within the food sector. It simplifies cooperation with nonprofits and volunteers, enables targeted distribution of food across Russia’s regions, and helps private businesses become more socially responsible. For those in need, assistance arrives much faster. For donors, digital tools make contributing quick and convenient, while transparent tracking mechanisms make it easy to follow how donations are used.

In the future, the project could be rolled out across all regions where X5 operates in Russia and integrated with large-scale government social programs. While the platform is built with Russia’s social infrastructure in mind, its technological solutions could be adapted by international partners and nonprofit organizations interested in digitizing charitable operations.