Food Recovery

The complex problem of food waste in Canada and the World.

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The Food Programme - BBC Radio 4

Investigating every aspect of the food we eat

If you are interested into listening to podcasts which investigate in food-related topics, makes sure to check out the BBC’s “The Food Programme” website. The BBC has recorded very interesting podcasts with experts that all work on different stages of the supply chain. Listen to how restaurants, small businesses and households can make better use of their surplus produce. 

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Studies demonstrate that the change is real, when one is intimately working with soil. When people have a reason to get out of bed each day — and that takes courage and perseverance for some of the folks we work with — a change takes place that is pretty profound.

Michael Ableman, founder of the social enterprise “Sole Food Street Farms”, talks about the positive effects of being engaged with agriculture. 

http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/street-food-tells-story-of-downtown-vancouvers-social-enterprise-farm

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Interactive: Mapping the Flow of International Trade

Use this interactive map to explore fascinating data on international trade. Which countries trade with each other, and which are stuck as hermits?

If you are curious to explore the broader topic of international trade, this interactive map might be in your interest. It visualizes the flow of traded goods, such as food, clothing, wood, plastics, machinery etc. 

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This infographic visualizes the food waste problem we have in Canada. The information conveyed touches many dimension: the environmental, the social as well as the ethical dimension. Food waste is a problem that requires action on many parts and can only be countered if measures are taken to make agriculture more sustainable and consumers more responsible. 

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Make sure to check out Tristram Stuart’s TED Talk on his opinion about food waste. He is a well-known advocate against food waste in the UK and also part of the documentary Just Eat It. He has written several books, the latest one being “Uncovering the global food scandal”, which inform about the causes and consequences of food waste. 

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Peg Leg films in cooperation with the British Colombia Knowledge Network has produced the documentary Just Eat It, in which a couple, living in Vancouver, challenges itself by trying to eat from discarded food for 6 months. The documentary sheds light on discarded food behind supermarkets and raises awareness about the quantity and quality of wasted food. Make sure to watch it!

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Part 3: Generation Innovation

Generation Innovation – this term is directed to the generation of millennials. Millennials are known for their natural use of digital technology, they are innovative and connected. Moreover, millennials are famous for their will to transform to have an impact on the world with what they are doing. As a result of the combination of the characteristics, this generation witnesses a boom of many entrepreneurs who transform their ideas into feasible business models. It is the combination of the knowledge about IT, innovation, the willpower to make a change and collaboration. A specific category within entrepreneurship is social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurs have the ultimate goal to support the positive outcome of socially-charged issues.

In the food waste sector, social entrepreneurs have become active in designing strategies that aim at re-purposing food that is lost along the production line. Many social entrepreneurs in Canada’s metropolitan cities have become fuelled with innovative ideas and you can see their action already now. The “Not Far From the Tree” Initiative proposes people to help them collecting the food they cannot consume themselves and redistribute this food to charity organisations. Likewise, “Flashfood” has set its aim to reduce surplus food by selling food that is not sold by supermarkets to consumers who use the online app. So far, we can see that many different initiatives are being created and run in metropolitan areas of Canada.

In order to name a local initiative that deals with urban agriculture, I would like to name the social enterprise “Sole Food Street Farms”, co-founded by Michael Ableman. Sole Food Street Farms is an urban agricultural project, set in Vancouver, which offers employment opportunities to socially marginalized individuals. It pursues to bring agriculture closer to urban life and also give long-term addicted individuals a purposeful employment. 

But where is the problem, why can’t we yet see a huge counter movement to the problem of discarded food? It is simple but significant: the lack of transparency and open data. If supermarkets are not sincere and open with their data about food waste, then social entrepreneurs cannot access information that would help them to form accurate predictions about food waste and design effective models. However, with the problem of data, information about food waste remains limited and not accessible.

Here is in excerpt from Tristram Stuart’s article “Supermarkets should be cutting food waste, not relying on charities”, published in The Guardian:  “For such a system to work the supermarkets would need open up their data to food waste social entrepreneurs and others, in order to work out where avoidable waste is occurring and how to link up with charities in the ways that work best for them.”

Let’s ask ourselves the last question: which impact can we make? According to the EU Fusion Program on Social Innovation, there are many opportunities in which citizens can get involved. Some of which are the following: For example, raising awareness which is a simple but incredibly important measure in order to inform the public about this social problem. Second, we can participate in workshops about healthy diets, seasonal food, local agriculture, food redistribution opportunities and many more. Lastly, there are many different initiatives that deal with giving awards and organising competitions for ideas who then can receive a grant for further developing their idea. In a nutshell, there are many participatory channels that citizens can make use of in order to reduce food waste and raise awareness in their community.

If you want to make a change, inform yourself on your local initiatives on your city hall’s website and browse through different food-redistribution projects in your city and find out where and you can help!

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Part 2: Globalisation

Globalisation – we all heard this terminology in all kinds of context. The flow of money is globalised, food flies all over the world to land in the correct supermarket, people wear the same brands and follow the same trends. How is globalisation interpreted within the topic of food production and food waste? With the increased transportation opportunity, we are eating food that can be produced anywhere in the world. Rice from China, Bananas from Ecuador and Mangos from Thailand. The effect of this availability satisfies the consumers’ desire to have a variety the consumer can chose from. Basically it reflects the luxury that we enjoy while we consume food that has experienced a long journey. What else do we know about globalisation? What else can we say about how globalisation affects consumer choice?

A highly discussed topic that reflects the luxury we gain from globalisation is the all-year-around availability of fruits and vegetables. Have you ever come to a supermarket where you needed to ask whether there are bananas or coconuts? No, they are always available regardless of the time of the year. As a result, we do not have the need to adjust our diet to more seasonal products but we can basically eat whatever we prefer.

In the article “Food waste: how much of it is consumer responsibility” written by Angie Hobbs and published in The Guardian, Hobbs calls for a more seasonal diet: “Furthermore, if we regain a more flexible and seasonal approach to what we buy and eat, then this might allow supermarkets and food producers to negotiate more flexible contracts, so that the producers will feel less pressured into producing a surplus.”

What are the effects on our economy? Well, due to the fact that supermarkets let produce fly long distances it is not the local economy that is strengthened in this regard but it is rather the world economy that is being closer interlinked. These has ramifications for local farmers of course because they are not as demanded as they would be without having imported produce. Hence, a seasonal diet would not only reduce the carbon emissions due to transportation costs but it would also strengthen the business of local farmers. As a result, environmental costs could be saved as well as stimulating the local economy could be fostered. 

What about the farmers market in Vancouver, are these products locally or regionally produced? This is a great question! Yes, farmer’s markets are a great alternative to going to the standard supermarkets. When talking about Vancouver, I can propose you two options: Granville Island has a great public market that you can visit all week long and Kitsilano has a farmers market on Sundays. In both options, you can buy fresh produce that has been produced locally and the prices are normally not above retailer prices. Why do people not prefer to go to these farmer’s markets? This is again a question that I cannot directly answer. It is the social habit that you go to a retailer store to buy your needs. However, it is also a question of convenience. How much time are consumers willing to spend on the time going and coming back from the shopping? How much value do they put on supporting local farmers? Are they knowledgeable about food and vegetable that is in season right now? As Stuart formulates it in the documentary Just Eat It: It all comes down to citizen’s morals. Hence, I really hope that individuals are informed and continue to inform themselves about seasonal diet and how they can responsibly buy food.

Picture taken by myself at the Granville Island’s Public Market in Vancouver.

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Part 1: The Farm-to-Fork Problem

Food waste - Have you ever heard of the “farm-to-fork” problem? It is the terminology that captures how we lose nutritious food all along the production line. The food we are consuming in a globalised world, often has experienced a long journey. Rice from China, Bananas from Ecuador and Mangos from Thailand. Not all these fruits make it to the bag in the supermarket, unfortunately. Can you tell me about this in numbers? Yes, if you wish so. In Canada specifically, food waste is estimated to account to $27 billion a year. This is a drastic number and implies that food waste is a large-scale problem in Canada. It shows the mere malfunctioning of an economic system, in which scarce resources such as water and land are used to produce food which is not consumed. How can we bear the responsibility for such a waste of resources? It is almost impossible to imagine the mountains of landfills that are composed of nutritious food which just did not make it to the consumer household at the end of the production line.

Is there someone who we can hold accountable for this malfunctioning of the system? I am sorry to disappoint you, but the problem is complex. The problem is complex because the production chain contains so many stations that there is food waste on every single station happening. However, statistics from the Value Chain Management Centre show that the places where food waste occurs most are at the farm, in the packaging process, in retail stores and in consumer households.

http://vcm-international.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Food-Waste-in-Canada-112410.pdf

First, the high retailer standards that have been established in Western supermarkets pressure farmers to only sell the fruit and vegetables that meet certain aesthetic standards. This means that farms need to discard food that is full nutritious but does not fulfill the aesthetic appeal of supermarket standards. Why do farmers not oppose these high aesthetic standards? Well, if you consider the triangular relationship between the producer (farmer), the vendor (supermarket chains) and the consumer (individual), then we can say that supermarkets operate for the best interest of the consumer. Hence, supermarkets want to sell the products where they are convinced that it will be sold to consumers.

Why do then consumers not intervene into the process and actively show that they are willing to also buy not perfectly looking food? For this question I can’t provide you a good answer. The best answer I can give you is to say that consumers lack the knowledge of food and how much edible food is discarded along the production line. Additionally, it is also the lack of interest to know where our food comes from and how it has been grown. However, there are new initiatives by civilians to re-direct discarded food, for example by selling it for a lower price or donating it to food banks or other charity organisations. This gives me hope. Me too.