Better Together: Food Rescue initiative

A joint effort to reduce food waste & increase food access

Leftovers volunteer Q&A: Gela Cabrera Loa

Like many other businesses within the food industry, Paraiso Tropical Latin Food Market is not immune to food waste.

“Food waste has always been a big problem in our store, because there’s a lot of confusion about what is actually consumable and what isn’t,” shares owner Jesus Gonzalez Rivas Jr.

“You have the expiry dates, the best before dates…a lot of the food that can still be consumed customers don’t wanna purchase ‘cause they think that they can’t eat it.

“So a lot of the time, we have been forced to just take those foods off the shelves when they’re completely edible.”

In the last two years, Gonzalez Rivas Jr. has tried to approach a couple of organizations in an effort to help Paraiso Tropical reduce its food waste, but due to logistical issues, a solution couldn’t quite be reached.

“A lot of customers always told us, ‘You know, you guys should donate your food,’” says Gonzalez Rivas Jr. “But at the time, it was hard to [find] organizations that could take our food.”

Leftovers to the food rescue

In June this year, Gonzalez Rivas Jr. received an email from Garnet Borch, Leftovers Foundation’s City Coordinator in Edmonton, to see if Paraiso Tropical would be interested in taking part in Rescue Food, a Calgary-born initiative which began in 2012 and branched off into Edmonton in 2017. Working with local food vendors and charitable organizations, Leftovers’ goal is to divert unwanted food away from the trash and redirect them to people in need of a meal.

The email led to a phone call. Gonzalez Rivas Jr. gave Borch a heads up that Paraiso’s food might only appeal to a narrow demographic but soon learned that Rescue Food makes every effort to find a home for all donated food.

Borch, who began his role with Leftovers just as the COVID-19 pandemic hit, has quite the complex role in brokering between business food donors and service agencies.

“We contact restaurants, bakeries, cafes, grocery stores – anybody that deals with food. If they are having to throw out food, we offer them an opportunity to, instead, donate that food,” Borch says. “And we have a volunteer that comes by, picks up that food and delivers it to a service agency. Those agencies could be pregnancy care centres, homeless shelters, addictions recovery centres, drop-in centres, live-in care centres, etc.”

When asked if businesses that are approached tend to be on board right away or reluctant, Borch admits that the response varies.

“A lot of stores – [with] the way they’re operating – don’t have a way to deal with their waste if they have any. Either they’re already donating to another organization or like with a lot of restaurants – it’s such a competitive industry – they don’t have a lot of waste. They can’t afford to have that. If they do have waste, generally they are interested in participating.

“But the other thing we found recently is with the pandemic, the managers and store owners are extremely busy trying to deal with all of the challenges they’re experiencing,” Borch observes. “So trying to start new initiatives for them when they’re already making so many adjustments has been challenging.

“Paraiso Tropical was a bit of an exception to that,” comments Borch. “Right away Jesus was like ‘Yeah, absolutely. That’s something we’d like to participate in. What are the next steps?’ So right from the beginning, Paraiso Tropical was very enthusiastic to support and donate food that they were otherwise having to throw out.”

From the food vendor…

While the food rescue initiative with Paraiso began in mid-August this year, it’s a bit of a coincidence that October – the month of Thanksgiving and trick-or-treating – was also the month in which Leftovers celebrated its birthday and also launched Food Rescue in another Canadian city, Winnipeg.

So far, Paraiso Tropical has donated an assortment of items from both store locations, including fruits and vegetables, pasta, candies and other sweets, cookies, coffee, juices and different types of beverages.

“Even [one of] our workers, she gave everybody two garbage bags full of crabapples from her apple tree, because it goes to waste every season,” recalls Gonzalez Rivas Jr.

“And that’s after she gave it to all of us and after we went to her house and made like a gazillion apple pies. And she still had a ton of [apples],” adds Paraiso co-owner and manager Bruna Campos Gonzalez with amusement. “[Our coworker] calls me one day – it was like 7:30pm – she’s like, ‘Bruna, I’m just dropping off the apples for the Food Rescue tomorrow.’ She went out of her way to go.”

…to the service agency

To date, three agencies have benefited from the Paraiso’s Rescue Food donations: Hope Cottage, a live-in care centre; Islamic Family & Social Services Association (IFSSA); and Action for Healthy Communities (AHC), a non-profit charity that mainly serves newcomer families who have settlement challenges in Edmonton. Given that Paraiso Tropical is a Latin American grocery store, one has to ask: is that a barrier for some recipient organizations to make use of the food?

“[Hope Cottages] received donations from Paraiso Tropical the first week, and they said, ‘Hey, we’re not sure what to do with some of these foods,’” remembers Borch. “[They’re] a live-in care facility, so there’s people who have routines that they follow quite closely and things out of the ordinary were more challenging for them to make use of.”

“But I would say, rather than a hindrance, [culturally specific food] is something that’s extremely valuable, because if one is experiencing food insecurity, it’s difficult to get any food on the plate, and the culturally relevant foods are even more challenging.” Borch counters, who further sought out a service agency that was serving the local Latino community when Paraiso joined as a Rescue Food donor. “I can imagine as an immigrant or a refugee in poverty or struggling to meet their needs, having these donations that are familiar and a touch of home can be extremely valuable, and that’s what we tried to do in connecting with Action for Healthy Communities.”

Suraj Khatiwada, the Program Lead for AHC’s Settlement & Integration program, along with Operations Coordinator Mustafa Zahid, work together to connect food rescue donations (including from Paraiso) to families in need.

In addition to settlement services, AHC does community development work that supports individuals and grassroot community organizations through community building activities, along with providing programs in the areas of employment, business development, and entrepreneurship.

Zahid shares that from March to July this year, AHC actually had a program in which the organization’s own volunteers delivered food to families in need twice a month. But after funding from that program ran out, AHC has since been referring families with food access challenges to Edmonton’s Food Bank and more recently, delivering food donations brokered via Leftovers.

Food rescue work can be unpredictable

Through Leftovers, six families connected to AHC have so far received food donations. Compared to the Food Bank, Khatiwada says there are both positive and challenging aspects with food rescue donations.

“In one sense, [through Leftovers], families are getting support directly through volunteer support, which is a better approach that can make a difference in their lives. But they are getting [a smaller] amount of food compared to Food Bank donations.”

In Edmonton alone, there are currently between 20 to 25 businesses (if counting each farmer’s market, rather than each vendor, as a business) donating food to Leftovers. Each month, 15,000 pounds worth of food is being rescued.

Both Zahid and Khatiwada appreciate the work behind food rescue, but also point out challenges from the agency side of things that others may not think about in the effort to be more sustainable.

While filling out the form to take part in the Rescue Food initiative, Khatiwada recalls reading that donations would be between 20 to 50 pounds. Going with the lower end of the estimate, AHC predicted that 20 pounds worth of food would be enough for at least three families.

However, the agency has so far been receiving less than 20 pounds of Rescue Food donations, which typically goes to one family or two at the most in a given week.

“So it is not happening as we expected before, and we don’t blame [Leftovers] ‘cause whatever they get from the stores, they will deliver that same food,” acknowledges Khatiwada.

Zahid believes that the challenges they face are communication gaps and time sensitivity since AHC only receives Food Rescue donations on Fridays and both him and Khatiwada, along with Settlement & Integration program staff are unavailable on weekends to deliver food donations to clients.

For instance, Zahid recounts receiving an email from Leftovers on a Thursday to which he replied that AHC could accept the following day’s Food Rescue donations. Within an hour or so, he received another email informing that the food donations unfortunately were being given to another organization.

“In the meantime, Suraj already talked with his settlement practitioners [who] already talked with the clients. If [Leftovers] give us a heads up at least two days before, then we can work on this one.”

Is rescued food safe to eat?

Similar to customers who avoid buying food that have surpassed their expiry dates or no longer look fresh, questions around food safety are also on the minds of AHC’s staff.

“Sometimes the perishable food is almost non-usable and very old,” shares Zahid.

“The health issue is another thing. We don’t wanna take a risk on that, so some weeks, we did not give [the perishables] to the clients,” adds Khatiwada. “Dry and canned foods we have given to families. Families are happy to receive those donations, of course.”

“One time, there were 20 kilograms of apples. They were very fresh, and we gave them to so many families,” Zahid recalls with a chuckle. “They were very happy.”

Concerns with food safety are valid concerns, although both Borch and Gonzalez Rivas Jr. offer other viewpoints.

“The way we are rescuing food is that we pick It up and it goes directly to the service agency rather than going into a food bank that would then store it for days,” Borch explains. “Although the [the food] is approaching its best before dates [and] even after its best before date, it’s still perfectly safe and very tasty. But we still get [the food to service agencies] as soon as possible so that it can be consumed as early as possible.”

Gonzalez Rivas Jr. points out that best before dates are not government regulated, but rather, food industry regulated for the purpose of rotating products within the market.

“The products are completely edible. They’re fine. They won’t kill you, you know? If anything, [food producers use best before dates] to guarantee freshness.

A lot of these foods you try after the best-before dates taste – to me – exactly the same, and I hope that people are more cognizant of the fact that it doesn’t mean that these foods are junk. Like you can still eat them.”

Regarding the uncertainty with food quantity that some recipient organizations like AHC are facing, Borch acknowledges these are complex challenges that exist within food rescue work as it is the nature of surplus food to vary in quantity.

“Our donors do not aim to have surplus as they would ideally sell everything. It is difficult to predict what will be available for a donation when there is still the possibility of selling it for two days,” notes Borch. “Our donations, from the perspective of a service agency, work much better as a supplementary addition to an existing food distribution program, such that fluctuations in volume don’t affect the operations and clientale.”

A bridge that helps businesses

From a vendor donor perspective, the managers at Paraiso Tropical are appreciative that Leftovers has made it easy to donate food, so that the business does not have to worry about the logistics as much.

Meanwhile, how has joining Food Rescue impacted food waste at Paraiso?

“We don’t throw a lot of food away. It’s encouraged us,” Gonzalez Rivas Jr. reflects. “You can see our other workers [have started] donating.”

While the journey from food waste reduction to food access may not be always be smooth sailing, perhaps another thing that may help is getting more businesses on board as food donors. As it turns out, Leftovers is currently on a drive for new donors right now!

“Contact us: that’s the first step,” encourages Borch. “And we can work through whatever barriers there might be after that point. Any donations are appreciated, and we have different ways of working with different [businesses] to find a way that is easiest for them to donate their food.”

Meet a Leftovers volunteer!

Shirley Phippen shared some insights on being a food rescue volunteer during a pick-up & delivery run from Paraiso South to Action for Healthy Communities.

How often do you do these pick-up & delivery runs?

Probably about three times a week. I did one on Wednesday. I’m doing another one on Sunday.

Which places do you go to?

On Sundays, I take [food from the] farmer’s market to Dickinsfield Amity House– it’s way up north. And Wednesday, two days ago, I went from Blush Lane [Organic Market] to the Multicultural Health Brokers [Coop].

All the Leftovers volunteers have an app which has the runs that haven’t been signed up for yet. So we just sign up on the app, and it tells us where we pick up and where we drop off. It has all the instructions, so all we have to do is follow our app.

Is there anything that businesses could be giving more of or they might be giving too much of something?

Well, I’m not really in charge of that […] but sometimes, a common thing to be given is bread, because it gets stale quickly. Sometimes, maybe it’s too much bread. But then, I don’t know how much need there is, and I’m not the one who’s on the other end.

Are you an Edmonton business interested in donating food? Get in touch with Leftovers’ Food Rescue, either by:

· Email: yeg@rescuefood.ca or

· Fill out the Leftovers Donor Agreement Form.

Interested in being a Leftovers volunteer? Sign up here!