Food for Thought Blog

Our Commitment to Reducing Food Waste at The Food Bank of Waterloo Region

October 20th, 2023Awareness, Food & Recipes, In the Community

It’s Waste Reduction Week in Canada and October 20 is Food Waste Friday. 

Food waste is a big problem here in Canada and around the world. Every year, 33 per cent or 1.3 billion tonnes of food produced in the world is wasted. In Canada, we waste 58 per cent or 35.5 million tonnes of food produced. This is not only a waste of resources and a contributing factor to greenhouse gas emissions, but it’s a waste of money too. For the average household, that’s like throwing away more than $1,700 of perfectly good food every year! And it’s especially concerning knowing so much edible food is being wasted when it could go to people in our community experiencing hunger. 

Food rescue is a top priority at The Food Bank of Waterloo Region. We have several initiatives that help reduce food waste and provide our community with safe, healthy, and nutritious meals. In 2018, we opened our Fresh Approaches Food Centre, our award-winning, onsite food processing facility. In this space, staff and volunteers safely repackage and freeze large fresh food donations that come from farmers, retailers, distributors, and manufacturers. This process maximizes produce donations, extends their life span, and increases the amount of fresh, healthy food distributed to the 120+ agency partners and community programs providing direct food support to people in need through the Community Food Assistance Network. To date, over 400,000 pounds of food—that otherwise may have ended up in a landfill—has been processed in the Fresh Approaches Food Centre.

In 2019, we furthered our commitment to reducing food waste by launching our Food Recovery program. Grocery retailers, food manufacturers, restaurants, and farmers all have a role to play in food rescue. By working together, we can prevent food that our partners can no longer sell from being thrown out and instead redirect this surplus edible food to help feed the one in 10 households in Waterloo region struggling to afford to put food on the table. Last year, our Food Recovery program stopped over 3.8 million pounds of food from being thrown out! It’s even more incredible to know that all that food was redirected to the more than 58,600 people in Waterloo region accessing food assistance. 

At The Food Bank, we also strive to raise awareness about the difference between expiry and best before dates. Did you know that a best before date simply indicates how long a product will remain at its best quality and doesn’t determine whether a product is safe to eat or not? In other words, you can eat foods with best before dates that have passed. An expiration date is different, as it outlines the last day a product is safe to eat. As such, foods with expiry dates should never be eaten after the expiration date. But knowing the difference between best before and expiry dates can reduce the amount of food wasted and save you money. 

Reducing food waste is a community effort. We invite you to reflect on the amount of food you throw away and whether you or someone else in need could enjoy it. 

If you’re a local business, restaurant, farmer, food retailer, distributor, or manufacturer who is interested in donating edible food, visit our food recovery page to learn more about our donation criteria or contact Nicole Marinelli, partnership officer, at nicolem@thefoodbank.ca.