Food Stash: The deeper challenges & solutions

By Maddie Hague, Program Manager

Vancouver’s wealth gap

Here in Vancouver, the wealth gap is wider than Canada’s overall, with 14% of Vancouverites being amongst the wealthiest 10% of Canadian earners, and 15% of Vancouverites being amongst the lowest earning 10% of Canadians. Vancouver also has the 2nd highest working poverty rate among large cities in Canada, and 20% of Vancouverites live below the national poverty line. A growing wealth gap means that the cost of living is increasing while poverty rates remain high. Thus, folks who work 1, 2, even 3 jobs, may still struggle to put food on the table. And when the cost of living goes up, but the wages of the working poor do not, those individuals, and people experiencing barriers to employment, are at risk of being displaced.

While a growing wealth gap is more apparent in Vancouver, it’s certainly not unique to the city. The polarization between high and low income is a global issue with historical roots. What we have is a wealth distribution problem, where wealth accumulation too often (but not always) depends on the exploitation of cheap labour and/or the environment. This exploitation presents challenges in our food system as well…

Poverty, Food insecurity and social injustice

There are many social injustices tied to who is more likely to experience poverty. For example, look at the graph below. In Vancouver we can see how race, immigration status and other social factors play a role in determining which groups experience the highest rates of poverty. Since poverty directly impacts a person’s ability to acquire adequate, nutritious food, poverty and food insecurity are tightly linked.

Furthermore, some social factors impacting food insecurity are not visible in the graph below. For example in BC, 34% of female lone parent families experience food insecurity versus 17% for male lone parent families and 11% for couples with children (Stats Canada, 2019). Thus, inequitable wealth distribution and systemic injustice cannot be ignored when we talk about shrinking the food insecurity gap.

social injustice, food insecurity and the pandemic

We don’t yet have accurate numbers to depict how the pandemic has impacted local poverty and food insecurity rates. But across Canada, we know the pandemic caused many people to lose their income, and the rate of individuals experiencing food insecurity rose to 1 in 7. Research also shows how income loss due to the pandemic skews towards certain groups. One survey found 69% of Filipinos, 65% of South Asians, and 64% of Black Canadians experienced unemployment or reduced income due to the pandemic, compared to 53% for the population overall.

Our food waste & its environmental impact

In Metro Vancouver, our food waste is staggering. A 2017 survey revealed that residents threw away 100,000 tonnes of edible food every year. A further 90,000 tonnes of inedible food (ex: bones, fruit skins, etc) was improperly disposed of as garbage rather than as compost. On average across BC, spoiled and uneaten food represents 25% of what residents throw in the trash. That’s more than any other waste category.

When organics go to landfill, they break down through an oxygen-starved process creating methane gas (which is a 20x more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide). Even though composting organics is a better option than landfills and incineration, composting still creates CO2 and emissions from transporting organics to distant composting facilities.

Why do we waste good food?

Here in Metro Vancouver, there is no lack of food or food production (though we are very dependent on the US and other countries for fruits and vegetables). Metro Vancouver is the food hub for BC, and the food supply chain flows to, from, and through the region. Furthermore, BC’s food supply chain has functioned surprisingly well through the pandemic (though the same would not be said if transportation and/or borders shut down).

In places where food is abundant, there tends to be more food waste because it’s easier to take food for granted. Indeed, across Canada, 21% of avoidable food loss and waste can be attributed to consumers. So while we need to strengthen local food resilience by protecting agricultural land and purchasing more food from local sources, we first have to start valuing food more, so that too does not go to waste!

Of course, not all food waste happens at the individual level. The most avoidable waste occurs during manufacturing (23%), where “inefficiencies caused by poor communication and non collaborative relationships, ineffective manufacturing processes, or inventory management issues” can cause food loss. Similarly, food Processing is the level at which “supply chain inefficiencies, ineffective packing processes, and order modifications can all cause loss.” Moreover, when food is processed it is graded, and if no market exists for food that does not meet specifications, it is thrown away. Again, if food was valued more, we probably wouldn’t allow these losses to continue.

side note: best before dates

Many see best before dates as expiration dates. But the truth is, best before dates (bb dates) are simply set by manufacturers to manage consumer perceptions of their product. The best before date is the date by which the manufacturer says their brand’s ideal taste and texture is guaranteed. Bb dates are not a direct reflection of food safety. So instead, check out this timetable by FoodRescue.ca outlining how long after the bb date it’s typically safe to consume certain foods.

the solutions

On the surface level, we can start reducing food waste by challenging perceptions around bb dates and picky stipulations around how food should look. We can collaborate, communicate, and fix inefficiencies at various levels of the food supply chain. But all this won’t happen unless we start valuing food as the life-giving resource that it is.

“Urgent progress and a drastic change in how we value food is required in Canada in order to tackle the problem and catch up with the rest of the world in coming up with solutions - Love Food Hate Waste, 2019.”

But what about poverty and food insecurity? On the other side of the food in/security gap, there are many people who do not experience the privilege of taking food for granted. That is why I’ll leave you with Food Secure Canada’s list of solutions for tackling food insecurity in an equitable and environmentally sustainable way:

• Address the root cause of food insecurity through establishing a universal livable income floor beneath which no one can fall, while ensuring that everyone in Canada has access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food;

• Build resilient, ecological local food systems that shorten and diversify food chains, revitalize communities, ensure greater access to healthy and fresh foods, support lower-emissions food systems, build greater resiliency to shocks and reduce food loss and waste;

• Support Indigenous food sovereignty where First Nations, Métis and Inuit determine their own place-based food systems, advancing policies that will best support self-determined resilient futures;

• Champion decent work and justice for all workers along the food chain by ensuring decent pay and conditions for every Canadian and international food worker, and meeting the specific demands of migrant workers;

• Ensure everyone is at the policy-making table through immediately convening, resourcing and empowering the Canadian Food Policy Advisory Council. Resources to ensure that wider civil society voices, above all those most marginalized by the present food system, should be included;

• Harmonize Canada’s national and international food policies, prioritizing food sovereignty approaches, supporting family farms and low-input, low-emissions agroecological food production as well as sustainable processing and distribution, and

• Immediately advance a National School Food Program, as promised in Budget 2019 and in the Food Policy for Canada, ensuring that it meets health outcomes, is universal, and is developed in collaboration with provinces, territories, key stakeholder groups and Indigenous leaders.

Notice how delivering surplus food to people who cannot afford groceries is not listed as a solution? That is because to truly eliminate hunger and waste, we need to address their root causes. So instead, a lasting solution is to value food so that food waste stops and therefore there is no ‘surplus.’ But at the same time, all people still have access to nutritious food because social injustice is no longer allowed to hold people back and income is equitably distributed.

That is why at Food Stash we say: in our ideal future we do not exist, but until then we will do whatever we can to eliminate food waste and remove barriers to food access.

Thank you UBC’s Social Science, 410 class for research that informed this article!

Learn more about the intersection between food insecurity, the pandemic and racism in the student infographics below:

Dismantling Racism in Vancouver’s Food System Under COVID-19

Race & Food Insecurity

A Canadian Syndemic