Inside Second Harvest’s Fight Against Food Waste

How this ambitious non-profit juggles food rescue, research, education, and advocacy to reduce food waste, combat climate change and feed hungry Canadians.

- MADELEINE SOMERVILLE

It's rare to find an organization actively working toward its obsolescence, but for Second Harvest CEO Lori Nikkel, that's the goal. "In an ideal world," she says with a wry smile, "we wouldn't exist."

Second Harvest is Canada's largest food rescue organization. Since 1985, the registered charity has worked doggedly to make its vision of "No Waste. No Hunger." a reality, but it's up against considerable odds. Almost 47 percent of all food produced for Canadians is wasted annually-8.83 million tonnes of edible food while 8.7 million Canadians experience food insecurity.

To combat this issue, Second Harvest connects charities and non-profits to businesses across the supply chain that have a surplus of nutritious, edible food. Anything from a few trays of sandwiches to truckloads of milk can be rescued and redistributed through the Second Harvest Food Rescue App or its direct delivery program.

Their efforts pay off-just last year, Second Harvest rescued and redistributed over 87.1 million pounds of food, supporting an estimated 6.5 million Canadians. But while Second Harvest began by simply rescuing food, Nikkel says its mission has grown substantially in the last 10 years.

"We used to say, 'We're a food rescue organization,' but that's just one of the pillars," she explains. "We are a research organization, we are a food rescue organization, we are a training and education organization, and we are an advocacy organization. We're trying to change the food system and how companies, industry and individuals are looking at food waste."

The Challenge of Food Waste

To fight food waste, you have to understand why it occurs. However, when Nikkel first tried to investigate the data, she found that it didn't exist.