MAY 2017 • COUNTRY LIFE IN BC
Entrepreneur launches food recovery platform FoodMesh plays into regional efforts to reduce food waste
by MARGARET EVANS and PETER MITHAM
VANCOUVER - Reducing food waste doesn’t just mean sending less food to the dump or making sure farmers’ aren’t wasting time growing food that will get ditched. It’s also about making food available to the people who need it, something entrepreneurs Jessica Pautsch and business partner Francisco McDougall want to do by creating an online platform that connects food producers with food providers. Known as FoodMesh, the platform is the debut
product of Mesh Exchange Inc., which Pautsch and McDougall founded after realizing the vast amount of food that goes to waste in Canada every year. A groundbreaking study by Ontario-based Value
Chain Management International Inc. in 2010 estimated that more than $27 billion worth of food goes to waste in Canada each year; a follow-up study in 2014 pegged the amount at more than $31 billion, an increase of 15%. “We were frustrated after realizing the scale of
food waste,” says Pautsch, who served as a consultant to international mining companies before joining the 21-member Vancouver Food Policy Council in December 2016. “Forty per cent of all food goes to waste and half of it is along the supply chain. Our distribution channels are fragmented. It also happens at the producer level. Loss can be from damage, aging, aesthetics and the look of food.”
The idea behind FoodMesh is to connect food
producers, processors and vendors with not-for- profits that can make use of items that may not make the grade for grocery store shelves but which are perfectly safe to eat. Product is advertised online at [
www.foodmesh.ca] and interested organizations can connect with them to secure
items and arrange delivery. The platform facilitates payment or a tax credit for each item. The project has the support of Metro Vancouver,
the city of Vancouver and Richmond mayor Malcolm Brodie. UBC’s Sauder School of Business and Bioenterprise Corp., a business accelerator for agri-tech companies funded through Growing Forward 2, also support the initiative, as does the BC Food Processors Association. Six food processors have signed on, including
Daiya Foods Inc., Global Gourmet Foods Inc., and allergen-free snack producer Wise Bites, as well as the coffee roaster Ethical Bean. “We are working with companies and the food
banks. The goal is to simplify how to get wasted food to the end user – waste less and feed more,” says Pautsch. “We want to simplify this and help them sell or donate the food and help them with the paperwork, logistics and the tracking.” Since its launch a year ago, FoodMesh claims to
have saved 47,700 kilograms of food from going to waste for a yield of 77,828 meals.
Seeking farmers
A pilot project starts this May that will see what the benefits could be on a larger scale. In addition to the existing six processors, 30 community organizations will take part. Pautsch is also seeking up to 20 farmers. She’s secured letters of intent from three local farms but would like to attract more. (She declined to name the farms that have expressed an interest.) “FoodMesh [will] help farmers simplify how they
re-distribute or donate their surplus to food banks or secondary markets,” she says. “These apps are becoming very popular in Europe but it is new territory here in BC. Our goal is to help farmers reduce food loss, connect to communities and ease
Exclusively
the administration overhead with the farm credits.” The idea excites Laura Lansink, executive director
of Food Banks BC, which represents 100 food banks across the province. While many have good relationships with local retailers, connections with local growers aren’t necessarily as strong. “[Jessica] has designed this so that food banks can access [surplus food] in the form of donations – go online, look and see what’s being offered, and if it’s something that they can use, be able to just click through and make those arrangements,” says Lansink.
Fresh produce for food banks
Securing farm fresh produce for food banks and similar organizations has long been a goal of government and the charitable sector. Four years ago, the Greater Vancouver Food Bank
Society completed a strategic plan that focussed on providing “accessible, healthy and sustainable food for all.” In 2014, it worked with 11 local farms to harvest and distribute more than 24 varieties of fruits and vegetables to its 28,000 weekly patrons. Last year, the province introduced a three-year
food donation tax credit program to encourage farmers to donate product to food banks and school meal programs. The credit is worth 25% of qualifying donations through January 1, 2019. “I see this dovetailing really nicely with that,” Lansink says of FoodMesh. “Food producers may not be able to make that connection with the food bank directly, and this may be a way they could do that.” While the tax credit hasn’t taken off, she believes
the platform will make it far easier for farmers to participate. “We’re just really beginning to try to reach out to these people to make sure that food is not being wasted when surplus food is available.”
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