The rollout of an app that’s been in the works for a couple of years is happening ahead of schedule to help get food to those who need it most in Newfoundland and Labrador.
This province has one of the highest rates of food insecurity among all Canadian provinces.
“No waste, no hunger,” is the mission of Second Harvest—a Toronto-based charity that operates the online platform Foodrescue.ca.
Leah White is Head of Operations for Foodrescue.ca – Newfoundland and Labrador. She’s originally from Ontario, but has lived in this province for three years, and is the first representative for the charity in Atlantic Canada.
White says their plans were kicked into high gear in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The local implementation of the program was supposed to take three years. Instead, it’s been closer to three months.
They are planning to hire another representative within the Atlantic provinces, but White calls it exciting that Newfoundland and Labrador is first on the map in the region.
Foodrescue.ca is trying to reroute good, unsold food and put it on the plates of hungry people.
White says they want to feed the hungry, and keep good food from ending up in the landfill—which causes massive amounts of greenhouse gases. She calls it a win-win situation.
White says a lot of food that gets thrown away is edible—especially in the service industry.
Foodrescue.ca is looking for food donors. It’s free to register for the program.
White encourages that people visit the website to sign up.
Meanwhile, the federal government announced a $50-million surplus food rescue program back in June.
Second Harvest and Foodrescue.ca are working closely with government, and say they have an announcement on the program coming later this week.
Foodrescue.ca is also working closely with NLEats and Food First NL.