At Leftovers Foundation, we are committed to keeping perfectly good and edible food out of the garbage to be used to its full potential: feeding people in need. To date, we have rescued over 5 million pounds of good food (and counting!) through partnerships with local businesses, organizations, and community members. We are thrilled to diversify these efforts and begin a new initiative in Calgary, where Leftovers was founded. In partnership with Earthware – an amazing Calgary-based business, Leftovers Foundation is expanding our Rescue Food efforts to ensure surplus prepared food from hotels, restaurants, and events can be redistributed in a way that is sustainable, circular, community-focused, and free of charge.
Leftovers are an inevitable part of a food business and can occur due to many factors, such as overproduction, inconsistencies in customer demand, and general unpredictability. Food waste doesn’t need to be. Often, perfectly edible food ends up in landfills simply because it is no longer sellable – but that doesn’t mean it’s no longer needed. With some foresight, redistribution of prepared food can mean someone in need is eating a meal with dignity.
Our goal has always been to help businesses plan for the contingency of waste in a way that benefits their operations, the environment, and our community. Through this initiative, not only are we assisting in the pick up, delivery, and food safety logistics of leftover food (free of charge, as usual), we are also fronting the cost for reusable containers for packaging donated leftovers. The convenience of takeout containers is made sustainable with Earthware’s products because once they have been used, they can be rinsed and returned to participating bottle depots, then collected, sanitized, and reused!
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, “of the seven billion tonnes of plastic waste generated globally so far, less than 10 per cent has been recycled” – leaving it to either take up space in landfills, be shipped thousands of kilometers away to be burned or dumped, or even enter our waterways and pollute our oceans. Earthware states that 180,000 restaurant takeout orders are placed every night in Alberta alone, translating to a whopping 720,000 single-use containers per night – not even counting grocers or fast-food containers! Even with the introduction of compostable containers, we still see massive amounts of containers enter our waste stream. Check out this video from Earthware about their innovative solution.
Providing reusable and refundable containers to businesses interested in redistributing their surplus prepared food is our way of showing how simple, streamlined, and impactful this circular solution can be. Together, we can ensure that good food is redirected to those who need it – without creating additional plastic waste.
We believe that everyone deserves access to nutritious food and redistributing surplus food is a pathway to a more sustainable future. We’re calling on catering businesses, hotels, event centers, and restaurants to join us in this initiative. Are you interested in learning more about how your business can get involved? Please reach out to [email protected] or fill out our Donate Food Form.
