Reducing food waste

[tomh009]

So food waste is increasingly recognized as a big problem ($31B in Canada, by one estimate).  This is a CBC article on the topic from October, plus an article that checked Wal-Mart as an example:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/canada-f...-1.3813965
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketpl...-1.3814719

So what can we do, apart from throwing out less food at home?  Services connecting consumers to food about to be wasted seem to be a great solution, but none of them are currently available in Waterloo Region.

PareUp, a pioneer, shut down about a year ago, having given the concept a good try.  But others are making it more convenient.  Flashfood, based in Toronto, enables purchase of surplus restaurant or grocery store food (and reputedly has signed up Farm Boy).  Ubifood, from Montreal, has a similar model.  And ResQ Club, a European solution, focuses on selling surplus restaurant food/meals, especially after lunchtime (enabling people to eat an inexpensive dinner).  All three allow online payments, providing convenience to both the consumer and the restaurant/grocery store.

I would love to see one (or more) of these in Waterloo Region.  Not just for saving money, but especially for reducing waste.

[nms]

The Ontario Christian Gleaners have been re-purposing surplus food in Cambridge since 2008.  From their website:

The ‘Gleaners’ is a volunteer driven organization, with over 1100 donated hours each week.  Each day, the volunteers are currently trimming  5000+ pounds of vegetables, providing the ingredients for 30,000 servings of soup.  The trimmed vegetables are diced and then dried in a dehydration oven – later to be combined with other ingredients to constitute the soup mix.  The soup is donated to partner organizations who have the necessary infrastructure for effective distribution, who are committed to sustainability and development, and who combine the gospel message with humanitarian aid. 

[tomh009]

That's good to see. Not quite the same thing, but still reducing waste and feeding people who might not otherwise get a meal.

[DHLawrence]

So they're up here then. I first heard about them on Windsor news so I thought they were southwest of us.