Fighting food waste in Canada

Food Security in Canada

Over 4 million Canadians, including 1.15 million children, live in homes that struggle to put food on the table – that’s one in 8 households. And in just a few months the COVID-19 pandemic has increased that number to one in 7 households.At the same time, 58% of all food produced in Canada is lost or wasted each year. We literally waste more than we eat. Of that waste is 11.2 million metric tonnes of edible food that could be diverted and donated to non-profit groups that nourish people. Instead it ends up in landfill where it decomposes and produces methane gas which is 25 times more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide. Healthy food should be filling bellies, not landfills. How can we divert healthy food from the waste stream?

Background

While consumers take much of the blame for food waste, food loss and waste happens across the supply chain – from farmers letting fruit rot because low prices make it uneconomical to harvest, to surplus milk going into sewers, to stores throwing out day-old bread or yogurt that is a few days shy of its best before date. Excess food sent to animal feed is viewed as revenue, while the cost of having produced that excess is ignored. At retail, it is often easier for staff to throw food in the garbage than take time to separate it so it can be donated. While change needs to occur across the food industry, the industry exists to feed us, so we all need to reconsider how we see food’s value in nutritional, human resource and environmental terms.

The good deed

With today’s good deed you make it possible for Second Harvest to rescue two pounds of healthy food and prevent it from going to landfill. When surplus food is recovered and redistributed to non-profits like shelters, food banks and meal programs, they can provide more food without increasing their budgets, allowing them to serve more people. Second Harvest rescues food in two ways: first, working directly with food donors from across the supply chain, taking unsold food and delivering it to a network of non-profits with its fleet of trucks. Second Harvest also operates FoodRescue.ca, a free online donation platform and mobile app that enables local food donors and non-profits anywhere in Canada to connect one to one.