Our group focused on Sprouts, the co-op in the UBC Student Union Building, because it allowed us to reflect on current socio-economic issues in Canada that are relevant to our education in LFS, such as student eating habits and food waste.
Few studies have been conducted to create a link between students eating patterns, health and level of activity (Harsohena et al, 2003). However, a study led in the United States showed that students that are nineteen and under are less likely to be overweight or obese compared to other students (Harsohena et al, 2003). This is probably related to the fact that eating habits deteriorate when students leave their “high school” homes, where they most likely lived with their parents. Our group also discussed that students are quite busy on campus and do not have time to enjoy a proper meal, which leads them to consume rapidly and easily available “junk” food.
Statistics Canada presents alarming data about rising obesity levels among the adult population; obesity levels in males rose from 15% to 20 % from 2003 to 2010 and from 14% to 17 % in females. During the same time period, the amount of overweight men and women has remained constant, but at a high percentage; 41% and 27% respectively (Statistics Canada, 2010). Below is the graph from Statistics Canada where we gathered this data.
Retrieved from http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/82-625-x/2011001/article/11464-eng.htm
On the other hand, the percent of Canadian personal expenditure spent on food and alcohol has continuously dropped from 28% to 16% from 1976 to 2008 (Statistics Canada, 2008). The study shows that over the past few decades, the Canadian population has been putting less and less money into their grocery bill, compared to other goods. This is likely related to the increasingly obese and overweight population because the cheapest foods are also usually the most unhealthy, although many other factors can influence weight gain, like lack of physical activity or illness.
How does that tie back to our study on sprouts?
Students lined up to get a free, healthy meal
Through Community Eats, Sprouts has been providing hundreds of students with a healthy, vegetarian meal. From Monday to Thursday, Sprouts mostly sells soups and bread from ingredients produced locally (Sprouts, 2012). The restaurant obtains its food for free on Community Eats days from local producers and provides a free, vegetarian meal to anyone with a tupperware (mostly students) (Sprouts, 2012). Sprouts become an excellent educational tool because it helps to get students more in touch with a healthy diet, which relates to the Statistics Canada information on rising obesity/overweight levels in students and adults.
We found that a significantly higher number of students attend Sprouts on Community Eats from 12 to 1pm, even though the wait time during peak hours can be from 20 to 30 minutes. This put our group’s idea of “unhealthy student diets are due to a lack of time to access healthy food” into perspective. Our group discussed other factors could explain why most students are aware of the Subway in the SUB, but not of Sprouts. Sprouts meals range from 2.75 to 3.75 for a soup (small or large) and a piece of bread, which is relatively cheap compared to the other food sources on campus. From this, we decided that price should not be a deciding factor that keeps people away from Sprouts. Serving time is not likely a factor either, as it is very comparable to any other fast food restaurants during normal lunch time. Thus we came to the conclusion that students’ conditioned taste was is the driving force that keeps people coming (or not going at all) to Sprouts. This highlights the importance of Community Eats; many students that are interested in a free meal in turn experience the taste of a properly cooked, healthy, vegetarian meal. This taste experience might increase students’ awareness about the fact that eating healthy can be tasty and in the long term, help decrease the amount of overweight and obese Canadians.
Bread from Terra Breads that normally would've been thrown away
In terms of food waste, around 40% of all food produced in Canada in not consumed; thus number corresponds to a value of 27 billion dollars, or 2% of Canada’s GDP (Value Chain Management Centre, 2010). Since Sprouts uses food that would normally be thrown away to cook for Community Eats, we were interested in calculating how much food Sprouts serves during one day of Community Eats. To do this, we measured how many ounces of food can fit in an average sized to-go food container, which is around 20 ounces. We rounded this number up to 25 oz because they usually serve bread and fruit on the side of the main dish. From our data collection, we calculated that the average amount of people served during Community Eats in one hour is 115.666 people. Community Eats officially runs for two hours, but they usually serve food for around four hours. Figuring out how much food is served was simple from there.
25 oz x 115.666 people x 2 hours = 5783.3 ounces of food, 5783.3 ounces = 361.456 pounds
Some of the food that Sprouts serves during Community Eats is bulk food from their grocery store, but considering they usually serve for more than two hours, no other figures need to be added or subtracted from the 361 lbs. This is a very rough estimate, but it is still an important statistic. 361 lbs of what would normally be food waste is diverted from the landfill in just one day at a small co-op at UBC. If innovative events like Community Eats were more commonplace, there could be a significant decrease in the amount of food wasted in North America today.
To-go containers full of free food
A classmate of one of our group members recently wrote a paper on food waste for a food politics class. We want to include this paper in our blog because it relates to our project and because we feel that it is a good opportunity to incorporate another UBC student’s work into our own. Although it is not a published paper, we ask that you respect our peer and treat their paper like any other piece of academic literature. You can link to a GoogleDoc with the paper here.
Another point we would like to make is about the large increase in customers on Community Eats days. On the Fridays we collected data for, the amount of people served more than doubled, it almost tripled in some cases. Although not all of the people that go to Community Eats frequent Sprouts on a regular basis, events like Community Eats could be an effective way to reach a wider audience of customers. Businesses could potentially benefit from having free-food events because they could attract new customers. It would be an interesting project to survey the people at Community Eats to see how many of them buy food from Sprouts on a regular basis.