Food recovery: Is liability just an excuse?
I’ve heard this too many times: “Sorry, we cannot let guests take the leftovers home because of liability issues”. The words “liability issues” have always been thrown around and immediately shuts down the opportunities to prolong the “life” of the leftover foods. I completely understand their concerns, but I often find myself questioning the validity of this. “Liability issues” almost seems too convenient of an excuse to not try harder, and an easy pass at addressing food waste. So I decided to dig around the internet to see if any groups of passionate Vancouverites are challenging this status quo.
The results did not disappoint. I managed to find 4 organizations: Refood, Greater Vancouver Food Bank, Food Stash Foundation, and COBS. Here is a short introduction of each initiative below.
1. Refood:
The Refood team takes excess produce from local partners such as grocery stores, farms, and restaurants. Next, their chefs make meals with those collected produce. Finally, they bring the cooked meals to homeless people and elementary school students.
2. Greater Vancouver Food Bank:
The GVFB’s Food Runners program recovers safe, quality food from businesses such as farms, food wholesalers, grocers, restaurants, hotels and commercial kitchens which they turn distribute to individuals and agencies.
The Food Stash Foundation recovers edible food items and delivers them to food-insecure households and charitable food distribution centers.
4. COBS:
Since 2003, COBS has a donation program where volunteers from charitable organizations pick up unsold bread and baked goods from each COBS bakery location at the end of each business day. (In my opinion, COBS is a fantastic example of a commercial, chain franchise that has a systemic structure for bread donations that really benefits the community.)
Seeing that just from a Google search, I was able to find a variety of groups who are already working towards the goal of reducing food waste, I feel encouraged to know that food recovery is indeed feasible, it it just up to people’s awareness and willingness to take action.
I also got the opportunity to interview a team member of Refood, getting first hand experience from her involvement in the food rescue scene.
On the common perception that liability issue stop companies from donating leftover food, she expressed that Refood’s partner such as Save On Foods were surprisingly willing to give their organics, which is done by a “pay by weight” system. What she wishes to see is more education for “…commercial vendors about options of preventing food waste like giving it to charities like Refood!”
When asked what she thinks is the greatest barrier for people to start implementing food rescue initiatives, she replies with: “Getting rid of the ugly food stigma !!!!! A lot of people think foods with expiry dates means they’re inedible but with a little bit of education, it can help them realize it’s not necessarily true.”
I 100% agree.
We need to shift the culture of not giving a second thought to leftover or excess food, to instead thinking of ways to not waste this resource? I challenge you, and myself to bring a container to the next staff potluck, or team meeting with catered food. I challenge everyone to raise questions when you see edible food being disposed instead of re-purposed.
Cheers,
Mimi