Food Loss and Waste Project

Second Harvest worked with Value Chain Management International (VCMI) on a ground-breaking food loss and waste (FLW) project, funded by the generous support of The Walmart Foundation. A world first, the project is researching FLW from a whole of Canadian chain perspective – from primary production to consumer. It calculated the total amount of food available for human consumption in Canada. Through conducting pioneering primary research, it will identify where, how and why waste occurs along the chain. It identified potential root-cause solutions to reduce the percentage of Canadian food sent to landfill – by proposing improved redistribution, reuse and recycling practices. It identified opportunities for food to be recovered and distributed to people who are food insecure. It culminated in the production and dissemination of a manual of scalable and sustainable solutions for addressing and preventing food waste.