—Donate Food
At Leftovers, we know that no one who makes or sells good food wants it to go to waste. And it doesn’t have to! Donating edible food is an effective way to lower the costs of waste disposal and reduce your business’s contribution to greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also an easy and safe way to make a contribution to your community.
Whether your business is a first time food donor or you’re finding you have more food to donate than your current food rescue solution can distribute, Leftovers is here for you. By joining the Rescue Food program, you can schedule recurring routes or on-demand pickups, and our dedicated volunteers will make sure that your surplus good food gets safely to community organizations serving the people who need it most.
The Leftovers Rescue Food App helps us track the total weight of your food donations, so we can calculate the volume of greenhouse gas emissions you prevent and the value of the food you donate. (Here’s more information about how we get those numbers.)
172 businesses donated food in 2024
8,067 routes completed
in 2024
$4,026,500 worth of food donated in 2024
But is it safe?
Our guideline is if you would eat it, we’ll take it! Our volunteers are equipped with thermometers to measure the temperature of high-risk and frozen foods at pick-up and drop off, to ensure that food does not reach unsafe temperatures during transport.
If you’re worried about your business’s liability if someone gets sick from food you donated, never fear–the Charitable Donation of Food Act (Alberta) or Food Donations Act (Manitoba) protects food donors from liability when they donate food that, to the best of their knowledge, is safe to eat. For more information about the kinds of food that are safe to donate, check out AHS’s Guidelines for the Distribution of Donated Foods, BC Centre for Disease Control’s Industry Food Donation Guidelines Part 1 and Part 2, and Leftovers’ Donated Food Guidelines.
Want to know more? Contact your City Coordinator to find out how we can make Rescue Food work for you!
Calgary – Liz Dill, [email protected]
Edmonton – Jan SMan, [email protected]
Winnipeg – Alyssa Wolfe, [email protected]
Red Deer & Lethbridge – Beverley Beckley, [email protected]
Not in one of our operating cities, but still interested in getting involved? Contact our Operations Manager, Julia Kraemer Carter, [email protected], to see if there’s potential for a Rescue Food program in your community!
Or consider making a financial donation to support our food rescue operations.
