The City of Guelph is looking to reduce food waste and combat food insecurity in the community with the launch of a new pilot project.
Alongside Wellington County and the Arrell Food Institute at the University of Guelph, the city is partnering with B12Give, a Toronto-based app aimed at eliminating available food waste.
“The gap they’re looking at addressing is in the catering and hotel business,” said Heather Connell, manager of business and technical services within the city’s Solid Waste Services team.
“Given the current economic climate and the need for food in the community, I think it’s another opportunity where we can fill a gap where there is food going to waste that could be upcycled or redistributed to those who need it,” she said.
It works as on-demand food recovery for retailers with surplus food.
The idea came to founder Tony Colley when he was working for a catering company and saw surplus food regularly being thrown out.
He began redistributing it to local shelters during his commute, and eventually created B12Give with a goal of redistributing 100 per cent of avoidable food waste across Canada by 2040.
Retailers download the app and set up a profile, where they can post when they have available food that would otherwise be wasted. A driver will then pick it up within two hours, delivering it to organizations who will redistribute it in the community.
Before delivery, the driver will also weigh the order to capture the social and environmental impact.
Since launching, B12Give has helped redistribute 60,000 lbs of food, 45,000 meals and diverted 230,000 lbs of methane gas.
Connell said around 6,400 tonnes of edible food goes to waste in Guelph and Wellington County, according to a study by Our Food Future Network.
From 2020 to 2022, 18 per cent of local households were found to be food insecure, according to Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health.
Hotel and catering businesses are significantly more wasteful than traditional restaurants, said Bruce McAdams, an associate professor at the University of Guelph whose research focuses on sustainability in food service.
“There’s minimal waste in (restaurant) preparation and production because you have professionals that are running kitchens every day and their profitability is based on trying to use up food,” he said.
But with hotels and catering companies, if they purchase perishable food like leafy greens but don’t have enough guests or events to use the rest up, it goes to waste.
“Hotel restaurants are notoriously inconsistent because they have very little transient business from local communities,” he said.
The menu options and buffets are big culprits as well.
“The menu choices being you can choose the chicken or the salmon, and ahead of time they’ll prep it and take a guess at how many they’re going to use,” he said. “With buffets, obviously there’s leftover food that can’t be repurposed because it’s been out.”
A continental breakfast too, involves food being put out that can’t be repurposed if it isn’t eaten.
“There’s something called the food waste hierarchy chart,” he said. “The best thing you can do is don’t create it in the first place. But the second is redistributing it for human use.”
“I think any initiative like that is great,” he said of the B12Give pilot.
Connell said they hope to have businesses, charities and other organizations signed up by March to launch the app locally sometime in the spring.
In the meantime, any organizations interested in getting involved in the initiative are encouraged to reach out to the city for more information.
