Canada has over four times the number of food charities than it has grocery stores. This shocking number should be a red flag for our country on many levels. For every Loblaws or Safeway, there are four faith-based centres, schools, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, clubs, and programs that offer food to 6.7 million Canadians who need food supports.
From big-box retailers to local corner stores, Canada has 15,344 grocery stores. Meanwhile, over 61,000 community organizations in Canada provide food at no or low cost to fill an essential need. “There’s no area that doesn’t suffer from food insecurity in the country,” Second Harvest CEO Lori Nikkel told Canadian Grocer. “It is outrageous to me that in a country as rich as ours, we have 61,000 organizations that have popped up to support people with low or no-cost food.”
“The bottom line is, people should be able to get their food from their grocery store because they have enough money in their pocket, wallet, or purse to purchase the food they need for themselves and their family,” Nikkel told CBC.
About 3,600 of those organizations are primary food providers, such as food banks. The rest provide food as a necessity on top of their main purposes, such as schools that offer meals or snacks. These non-profits are hidden away in every community and are often run by volunteers doing what they can with limited, donated supplies and ever-increasing demand.
This is Canada’s invisible food network.
Canada’s Invisible Food Network Report
Second Harvest is shedding light on the massive and essential patchwork of non-profits across the country that pick up the slack where our broken food systems and policies do not. In the first of its kind ground-breaking research, Canada’sInvisible Food Network report identifies and maps out all non-governmental organizations that feed Canadians, measuring quantity, food types and need, supply and demand, shortfalls, and the impact of COVID-19. The report was co-authored by Second Harvest and Value Chain Management International (VCMI).
“Our research shows that the charitable food system is a huge patchwork of vital but disconnected services,” said Second Harvest CEO, Lori Nikkel in a recent press release. “That’s not a sustainable model of a resilient food system, especially for our most vulnerable populations. What adds to the urgency is that millions of tonnes of unsold healthy food are going to landfill every year. We need to start bridging the food rescue gap now and this research gives us a literal map to move forward.”
This research is a first step toward understanding the big picture and building a plan to overhaul Canada’s systemic food issues.
The Shortfalls of Supply and Demand for Food in Canada
The Invisible Food Network report found that in 2021, 6.7 million Canadians (~18%) rely on community food organizations. That’s roughly the population of Alberta, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan combined.
The dollar value of the food distributed by this network was $33 billion in 2020. By sales volume, that would have made them the second-largest grocery store in Canada. It is unacceptable that so many Canadians depend on community food organizations to put food on their tables.
Based on Canada’s food production, our country could feed every Canadian with a massive food surplus leftover. Second Harvest’s 2019 report, The Avoidable Crisis of Food Waste, found that 24.6 billion lbs (11.2 million metric tonnes) of potentially avoidable food loss and waste takes place in Canada every year. Much of this surplus could have been redistributed to the invisible food network—and the millions of food-insecure Canadians they support.
The Invisible Food Network of 61,000 Community Food Organizations
Unfortunately, the invisible food network is largely unrecognized, unorganized, disconnected, and struggling to keep up with the limited, disjointed supply and massive demand. Volunteers are stretched, doing what they can with what food comes in when they can get it. They need fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, dairy, and eggs to feed their food-insecure community members. They often get too much bread or grains in an influx, or unhealthy, yet more affordable, junk food.
Without proper resource management, coordination, and infrastructure, this invisible food network—that feeds almost 20% of Canadians—is unsustainable and needs our help. This became especially apparent in COVID-19.
Canada’s Growing Food Insecurity and COVID-19
Before COVID-19, an estimated 4.4 million Canadians, including 1.4 million children, lacked access to food. This number has been growing steadily for decades. The pandemic supercharged its pace. By May 2020, one in seven Canadian families struggled to put food on their tables.
Unemployment spiked and businesses closed, forcing many households to choose between putting a roof over their heads or food on the table. Disruptions to food distribution channels and COVID-19 protocols and closures put extra pressure on the broken food supply chain.
The result: food charities saw a 72% increase in the number of people served during COVID-19. The total weight of food and beverages needed to feed those in need went from 6.1 billion lbs in 2019 to 9.9 billion lbs in 2021—a 61% increase. If every meal weighs one pound, that’s nearly 10 billion meals that Canadians got from the invisible food network.
Making a Plan for Canada’s Sustainable Food Future
There is hope yet! Despite this huge increase in demand for food, emergency funding and the generosity and adaptability of many Canadians helped somewhat lessen the immense gap (or shortfall) between supply and demand.
This need is not going away. “The gap between rich and poor continues to grow. We have a lot of unemployment and underemployment,” Nikkel said to CBC. “We have an income problem, a housing problem, an affordable daycare problem.” With a better understanding of the invisible food network and demand, we can begin to bridge the gap between those who have access to excess food and those organizations that need it. We can build a sustainable plan from there.
Our food system is broken—and it’s a gigantic problem. Food waste is a monetary problem for farmers, manufacturers, food distributors and businesses. It’s a food insecurity and monetary problem for consumers, communities and people in need. And, it’s a major environmental problem flagyl over the counter for the planet.
Of that wasted food in Canada, 32% was totally avoidable. This is beyond just an environmental tragedy, especially when you consider how many households and communities
Today, however, we’re considering the developed world’s appetite for perfection and how our unsustainable food aesthetics are hurting us and our planet.
Food aesthetics, “ugly” food and demand for perfection
Second Harvest’s food crisis report tells the story of the tomato and its cycle through loss and waste from the field to our forks. In fact, millions of tomatoes are grown
in Canada every year but it is expected that hundreds of thousands of them won’t make it to the market, let alone leave the farm.
Why?
Our unsustainable supply and demand for perfect food aesthetics
On the production, harvest, processing and manufacturing side of things, food loss happens on various levels, including the food aesthetics grading system. Only “perfect” grade one or two produce sell to retailers. Any produce that isn’t the exact right shape, size, appearance and colour won’t fit the exact specifications for premier grades of produce.
Once rejected by the processor and, if there isn’t a secondary market to sell to, they go to the landfill. This is all because the product has a blemish, bruise, discolouration, or is “ugly” somehow.
The same food aesthetics perfection applies to products when it comes to best-before dating practices. We throw out perfectly good foods and beverages because of a date that had no correlation to food safety at all.
Most consumers don’t buy imperfect produce
Once the “perfect” foods reach the distributors, retailers, and consumers, more food waste occurs as produce becomes overripe or forgotten about in our fridges. In shops, homes and restaurants alike, fresh bread’s thrown out once it’s a day old. Yogurt gets discarded because the best before date is coming close.
Even consumers root around in grocery store fridges to find “newer” dairy products or soft, yet not bruised avocados or stone fruit. Why? The ugly truth is that consumers don’t buy imperfect fruits and vegetables. They sort through bins and squish or bruise the produce until they find the perfect one, leaving the rest to spoil.
At home, 21% of food waste is avoidable (and could save households an average of $1,766 per year).
Overstuffed fridges full of perfect foods for the landfill
The “ugly food movement” has been around for many years—it’s even become controversial and attracted big business. As The New Food Economy put it, “there is no simple answer to how we deal with food waste…” however, tackling food loss and waste should be a number one priority for governments, communities, businesses and individuals.
We need to rethink our appetite for perfection and over-consumption.
If consumers no longer demand “perfect” produce, how will that affect the supply chain? Ugly foods are, after all, just as nutritious and delicious. What if farmers and manufacturers, producers and distributors, and shops and consumers—all of us—changed our food consumption habits?
What if we consumers didn’t overshop and overstuff our fridges only to throw them away once they’d gone bad?
Save the environment and feed the hungry (while we work on our bad habits)
Until we lose our appetite for perfect foods, however, redistributing food waste helps lessen our environmental impact. The more good food that avoids the landfill (and CO2 emissions that come with that) the better.
We aim to divert food away from landfills and into the hands (and kitchens) of non-profits, charities, school programs and agencies that help provide hunger relief to food insecure communities across Canada.
The devastating impacts will be widespread. They will range from extreme weather events to severe droughts, heatwaves, catastrophic rains, flooding, ocean warming, rising and acidification, increased global temperatures, and changing growing seasons. This is happening faster than previously anticipated.
There is a tiny glimmer of hope—but only if we act now and decisively!—which we will discuss shortly.
One major impact that our changing climate will have is on our global food security.
The Climate Crisis and the Food Industry
If global temperatures rise 1.5C and higher in the next decades, food production and supply will suffer. This is expected to cause higher food insecurity for many reasons.
Our Changing Climate’s Impact on Agriculture
“Across the globe, over 80% of calories consumed come from just 10 crop plants, including rice, maize, and wheat,” Bonnie Waring, senior lecturer at the Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, said in a Guardian article. “Although a few staple crops – like soybean – may do better in a warmer future, warming temperatures and increasingly frequent droughts are likely to reduce yields of these key crops across many regions of the globe.”
The IPCC report states that there will be an increased number of days per year with higher temperatures than crops can stand. This extreme heat, coupled with prolonged periods of drought and changing rainfall patterns will make agriculture more difficult in the years to come. It may also wipe out entire yields of crops.
“Increased heat and humidity will harm current crops and livestock, with droughts and floods having the potential to wipe out harvests as well,” Ilan Kelman, professor of disasters and health at University College London, said to the Guardian. “Massive shifts in agricultural practices, including changes to crops and livestock, would be needed to counter these effects.”
Beyond an increased frequency of record-breaking hot days, our growing season will change. For example, the first and last frost days will change as the cooler months get shorter and less cold with fewer days of snow and participation. Many crops rely on the clockwork-like predictability of those frost cycles, however, as well as needing cold nights to thrive.
Likewise, devastating rainfall may damage plants and wash away essential nutrients or cause fields to flood completely.
All of this will make farming practices more difficult.
Our Changing Climate’s Impact on Fisheries and Aquaculture
The same goes for the fishing industry. Increasing ocean temperatures, acidification, and deoxygenation will (and is already) impact fisheries and aquaculture. For example, this year’s heatwave cooked billions of shellfish alive along the entire Pacific Northwest Coast. The increased frequency of powerful storms will also make it more difficult to farm and fish the changing coastlines.
The Climate Crisis and Food Security For A Growing Population
“If we fail to act, then significant numbers of people could face major problems with food,” said Ilan Kelman. By 2050, our global population is expected to top 10 billion. This means that our global food production must rise by half in the next 30 years.
These are the same 30 years that IPCC says that we are locked into worsening climate changes, regardless of any changes we make.
According to the IPCC’s Food Security and Food Production Systems report from 2018, compared to 2010, the world will need an extra 7,400tn calories per year in 2050 and beyond. That means that we will require a landmass twice the area of India if we continue on the same path of unsustainable consumption.
Water, Our Climate Crisis and Food Security
Last month, we wrote about our freshwater crisis in A Drop’s Worth: The Value of Water on Food Security. Only 2.5% of our changing planet is currently made up of freshwater—and ~70% of it goes to agriculture. Humans using this precious freshwater unsustainably, specifically in developed countries. Meanwhile, the IPCC’s 2021 report states the certainty of drier, hotter years and decades ahead.
An Excerpt From Our Piece on Valuing Water
Water scarcity is a serious and growing concern. This is especially true when we look at the link between water and food production.
We need water to produce food. Water helps plants grow, boosts crop yields and nutrition levels, allows farmers to expand their production to feed more people, and allows us to grow food during dry seasons or droughts. The more water that a community—or country—has available for agriculture, the higher the food security. There is also known to be less malnutrition, famine, and undernourishment where there is better access to good water.
Water is therefore central to our food security, health, and nutrition.
It is also in high—and ever-increasing—demand as our population continues to grow and more droughts plague our changing climate.
The Higher Cost of Food and its Impact on Food Security
Agricultural challenges and risks in a changing climate come at a cost.
This will, unfortunately, impact food prices, access, and affordability for all, including those vulnerable to food insecurity individuals and families. In Canada, for example, one in seven individuals are currently food insecure.
According to a study by the World Bank, since 2010, there has been an estimated net increase of 44 million people in extreme poverty in low and middle-income countries as a result of food price increases.
It’s time to act. Our climate crisis and food security depend on swift and widespread changes.
The Glimmer of Hope if We Act Now
The IPCC 2021 report laid out five scenarios or climate futures. In all cases, global warming of at least 1.5 degrees. The impacts discussed above will happen in the coming decades.
However, the best-case scenario states that we could limit global warming after 2050 if we take aggressive, fast, and globally widespread action to cut our CO2 emissions starting now. This kind of action requires global, political cooperation that most governments have not been able to achieve so far.
The worst cases, where we do not slow our emissions, predict global temperatures of 3 to 6 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial levels by 2100. This will have catastrophic consequences to humankind and our only home.
Reduce Food Waste and Eat and Farm Sustainably
It’s up to everyone to act now. From policymakers and government bodies to organizations, farmers, and consumers.
According to EPA, the single largest source of global greenhouse gas emissions is electricity and heat production. That includes the burning of coal, natural gas, and oil for electricity and heat. Make an impact by switching to renewable energy sources, such as hydro, solar, wind, ocean, and geothermal.
After that, the second-highest group of CO2 emitters includes agriculture, forestry, and other land use—with most of the emissions coming from agriculture and the cultivation of crops and livestock and deforestation for agriculture.
Fixing Our Broken Food Systems
This is exacerbated when we consider our broken food systems: one-third of all food produced globally goes to waste. Food loss and waste represent nearly 60% of the food industry’s environmental footprint. If food waste and loss were a country, it would be the worst emitter of CO2 after China and the U.S.
Unsustainable food consumption and production patterns must change now.
For consumers, this also means eating sustainably. Eat less meat and dairy and less often. When you do consume meat or dairy products, support local, sustainable farmers. Eat more vegetables and more often.
“A rapid transition to agroecological farming offers a healthier and more sustainable approach to producing our food and requires a shift in our diets to less and better meat, with an emphasis on fresh fruit and vegetables and the consumption of more pulses and legumes,” explained Rob Percival, head of food and health policy at the UK’s Soil Association.
Reimagining the Future—For People and the Planet
Healthy food should never go to waste, especially given the circumstances that we now find ourselves in. Yet 11.2 million metric tons of edible, potentially rescuable food is lost or wasted every year in Canada alone, from every part of the food chain, from farm to retail.
Imagine what could happen if that lost and wasted food was diverted from the path to landfill and redistributed to communities instead. Given the high toll that food waste exacts from the environment, that one simple step could dramatically reduce the number of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere.
Even as consumers, we can play a role, too. We can tell our favourite food retailers about Second Harvest’s food rescue app, available for free from the App Store or Google Play. We can vote with our wallets and choose to shop at stores and eat at restaurants that donate their surplus food.
Let’s work together to rewrite the script and reimagine a healthier future, one plate and shopping bag at a time.
You’ve just sat down to enjoy a steak and salad for dinner. You pour yourself a glass of water and as you take a sip, you wonder, how much water did it take to make this meal?
You’re not eating a kilogram of beef to yourself, so let’s say that it’s a 6oz steak. That requires 674 gallons or 2,550 litres of water to produce. A simple tomato, lettuce, and cucumber salad requires 21 gallons or ~79 litres of water. You also had a glass of water (another ¼ litre), which may not account for much here, but it all adds up.
Where’s Our Freshwater Going?
The average person consumes 5,000 litres of fresh water a day.
Virtual water use is the water that it took to produce everything around you.
That includes the water that it took to produce or farm, manufacture, package, and deliver your meal. But it also includes the hydropower used to light your home, heat your water, power your stove, wash your dishes, and even make your clothing, launder it, and get you cleaned in the shower.
Home consumption of water accounts for 11% of total freshwater consumption. Industry uses 19%. Agriculture uses 70%—some of which you’ve just consumed in your meal.
Blue, Green, and Grey Water Footprints
Water footprints of food items are broken up into three different categories:
Blue: The amount of surface and groundwater used in production (for irrigation and watering).
Freshwater can be found in ice, groundwater that is hidden deep under the surface, and surface water such as ponds, lakes, atmosphere, permafrost, and rivers.
Green: The amount of rainwater used in production.
Plants naturally absorb precipitation and store it in their roots, as well as evaporate water from their leaves.
Grey: The amount of water used to dilute pollution created in the production.
For every statistic like 15,000 litres are required to produce one kilogram of beef, it also has a blue, green, and grey water footprint breakdown. Respectively for beef, it’s approximately 93% green (rainwater only), 4% blue, 3% grey water footprint, but varies greatly depending on farming practices.
The largest share of green water used—99% of it—comes from irrigating the feed that the cattle consume. And yes, even entirely grass-fed beef has large water footprints due to the water needed to grow the grasses that the cows graze on.
Water Use and Sustainability
But the Earth is 71% water!
Yes, and only 2.5% of that water is fresh, deliciously drinkable water. The other ~97% of our planet’s water is the ocean, which is too salty in its current state to consume or irrigate with.
As you can see, our freshwater use is unsustainable, especially on a global scale. Especially in developed countries where the value of water seems much too low for how much we need and use it.
Over the past 100 years, global freshwater use has increased sixfold and continues to increase by roughly 1% every year since the 1980s. If we continue on business as usual, by 2030—a mere nine years from now—the world will face a 40% global deficit in freshwater.
Unfortunately for us and our planet, most of the food that is produced in the world goes to waste. Food loss and waste (FLW) represents nearly 60% of the food industry’s environmental footprint.
When food is lost and wasted along the food supply chain, so is water.
Most of the waste was avoidable.
According to Second Harvest’s The Avoidable Crisis of Food Waste: Technical Report, for every tonne of FLW in Canada alone, 128 tonnes of precious blue water was wasted.
The Link Between the Value of Water and Food Security
Water scarcity is a serious and growing concern. This is especially true when we look at the link between water and food production.
We need water to produce food. Water helps plants grow, boosts crop yields and nutrition levels, allows farmers to expand their production to feed more people, and allows us to grow food during dry seasons or droughts. The more water that a community—or country—has available for agriculture, the higher the food security. There is also known to be less malnutrition, famine, and undernourishment where there is better access to good water.
Water is therefore central to our food security, health, and nutrition.
It is also in high—and ever-increasing—demand as our population continues to grow and more droughts plague our changing climate.
A Drop’s Worth: The High Value of Water
The good news (!) is that we have the power to act responsibly and change our ways.
Only the privileged few have the ability to access and use 5,000 litres of water a day, for example. Three billion people around the globe lack access to clean, safe drinking water.
The same can be said of food insecurity.
One in seven Canadians doesn’t have access to good, healthy food, despite the avoidable food loss and waste. That’s why Second Harvest works to divert surplus food from the landfills (and compost buckets) to help feed those in need.
Talk to your local grocer about Food Rescue efforts to divert food loss and waste to those community members who are food-insecure
4. Cut back on indoor and outdoor water use
Turn off the tap!
Opt for shorter showers
Fill a water bottle and put it in the back of your toilet—it’s that much less volume of water flushing every time
Use energy- and water-efficient dishwashers and laundry modes with larger loads
Conserve water while you’re cooking and cleaning
Save your leftover water in a jug for your plants
Dry farm—let the rain water your plants
5. Conserve energy
Turn off the lights, heat, a/c, and fans whenever you don’t need them
Support eco-friendly home appliances and businesses
6. Switch to reusable water bottles
Make sure that you drink enough water every day, but do it in a sustainable way
Avoid single-use plastic water bottles that create more problems
There are great ones available, including from Second Harvest’s supporters at Fill it Forward. Learn more about Fill it Forward’s support of water programs below.
7. Educate yourself on water use in your country
8. Celebrate the high value of water every single day!
With support from Fill it Forward, the Water First Internship Program supports young Indigenous interns in First Nations communities to become certified water treatment plant operators.
In order to address the problem of single-use waste most effectively, Fill it Forward has focused their efforts on influencing behaviours that inspire reuse. Their team develops macro-level systems and programming for large organizations, as well as micro-level product features and tech that engages individuals to create lasting change.
Every time you scan one of the reuse trackers into the Fill It Forward App, they track in real time the environmental impact of that decision as well as donate to their partners’ clean water, sanitation, or nutrition programs. Those projects range from the Americas to Asia, Africa and beyond.
Canada is home to more than 15,000 grocery stores that employ nearly 400,000 Canadians. As the cornerstone to every community—large and small—the grocery and food industry is an essential service and integral part of our society.
During the pandemic, grocery, manufacturing, supplier, and distribution employees worked tirelessly to keep Canadians across the country fed with healthy, nourishing food. They were diligent to try to keep everyone safe and socially distanced while keeping shelves stocked.
Recognizing Frontline Workers with Grocery Heroes Day
Grocery Heroes Day commemorates the hard work that workers in the grocery industry have done to help feed Canadian families during COVID-19.
As Canada’s largest food rescue organization, Second Harvest is proud to take this opportunity to recognize the outstanding work that our grocery partners and their frontline workers have done throughout the pandemic. They have helped put food on the tables of millions of Canadians during an unprecedented time, despite supply chain disruptions and added health and safety precautions.
Thank you to all of those working in the grocery and food industry.
How Grocery Stores are Addressing Food Waste and Hunger
In the face of the pandemic, our grocery partners went above and beyond by helping Second Harvest to divert food waste at the retail level and help feed some of the 1 in 7 food-insecure Canadians.
Second Harvest’s Food Rescue App is a tool that grocery stores across Canada, including our partners Loblaws and the Empire group of stores, use as part of their sustainability strategy. Retailers of any size can use the free app to manage their surplus food and help keep it from being wasted—and feed those community members in need.
Grocery Heroes Day is a great time to celebrate the frontline staff at grocery stores who are not only doing vital work for the community members they see in-store, they’re also working behind the scenes to rescue their stores’ unsold food and donate it to non-profits in their communities. As we commemorate the first-ever Grocery Heroes Day, we asked staff at just two out of the hundreds of grocery stores across Canada that rescue and donate food why they do what they do.
Samantha is the assistant store manager at Sobeys Meadowbrook in Edmonton, AB, which has been using the Second Harvest food rescue app since May 13. She is involved in the Sobeys Food Rescue Champion committee which is a group of eight very involved Sobeys store employees who promote the Food Rescue program and help enhance it.
“I feel a responsibility to try to help feed as many people as I can, and the Second Harvest app has given me the opportunity to do that through day to day business at a job I love,” says Samantha.
The Meadowbrook store donates twice a week to The Guiding Light Women Empowerment Society. Chinwendu Deborah from Guiding Light is picking up a car full of rescued healthy food donations.
“Making connections and building relationships in our community is incredibly important to us. The Second Harvest program has allowed us to further our relationship with our community partners and help to create positive change for those facing food insecurity.”
The staff at Hardy’s YIG with some of the healthy food donations that will be shared with their neighbours in Devon, AB.
“We love working with Second Harvest!” says Susan Hardy, franchisee of Hardy’s YIG in Devon, AB.
“For us, it can be hard to find the time to get out and donate our extra food and divert food from the landfill. We have been looking for ways to do this, and we could not find alternatives. Second Harvest has given us the help we needed to be able to accomplish this.”
“They have made the process so easy for us! We just go onto the website and insert what we have to donate and the rest is basically done for us. We are now able to support our community and donate all our extra food, allowing us to both give back and create less waste.”
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