Jessica Regan
VFR: Jessica, tell us about yourself and the path that led you to founding FoodMesh.
JR: I was fortunate to begin my career in Geneva Switzerland, interning with the World Organisation Against Torture, and UNESCO. While fascinating work and a childhood dream come true, I quickly learned that the path to sustainable social change is not always top down, but through grassroots, bottom-up activities.
I moved to Vancouver to study this topic further at UBC. After graduation, I launched my first enterprising non-profit called EcoTrek Tours in 2007. It used ecotourism as a vehicle to connect students from schools across the Lower Mainland to local initiatives through curriculum-based tours in 5 themes: fisheries, green architecture, water, waste, and food.
From there, I was hooked on using an enterprising model to have social or environmental impact in a scalable way. Fast forward 10 years after working with First Nations, industry, governments, and non-profits on various community economic development initiatives, I became aware of the intolerable problem of wasted food.
It started after a discovery in late 2015 when I came across photos of trailer loads of perfectly edible produce headed to landfill because it was ‘too ripe for retail’. I was unable to shake these images, so I started to investigate the root causes and scale of the food-waste problem.
As many of you know, we waste over half of the food we grow in Canada, yet 1 in 8 Canadians are food insecure. Further, it contributes 8-10% of our global GHG emissions. But many of you may not know that the food deemed as ‘surplus’ is often discarded for cosmetic or quality issues, not safety reasons and is perfectly rescuable.
We knew that it wasn’t a food supply problem, it was a connection problem when food no longer fits the profile of the intended buyer. There needed to be back-up channels to help save that food.
That’s when the original idea for FoodMesh was born — find a scalable solution that helps businesses do the right thing and divert the maximum volume of their unsalable food away from waste streams. It’s called ‘Mesh,’ as we wanted to be a connector, and safety net, to be called upon when you do not have a place to send that food—Mesh can help.
VFR: Please share about FoodMesh and the services you offer as well as FoodMesh’s impact.
JR: FoodMesh is a B Corp that was created to help businesses reduce waste, feed more and create shared value. We do that by building software and services to help connect, coordinate, and measure the redistribution of food to a network of charities, farmers, and upcyclers to a network of 2,500+ organizations and governments.
We have an online B2B Surplus Marketplace that allows businesses to sell or donate their large volumes of surplus products on an ad-hoc basis to a network of local upcyclers and charities. So if ever a business finds itself with an unexpected volume of food it can’t sell through its usual channels, the Marketplace helps to match them to an organization or groups of organizations to collect that food, so they don’t have to dispose of it.
We also offer managed services to businesses to ensure that they have a robust and consistent food recovery program across all of their locations/provinces. Our work involves filling the gaps of their existing program and maximizing how much they donate to local organizations (non profits + farmers) and continuously train their staff, so that the donations continue to flow even with staff turnover. We also collect the data to provide actionable insights to the food waste generators, so they can understand their food waste footprint and do something about it.
As a B Corp we measure the impact of the work from an environmental and social perspective.
Since 2018, FoodMesh has supported organizations in our network to divert over 30 million KG of food away from waste streams, rescuing the equivalent of 46 million meals.
Vancouver Food Runners is one of our partners contributing to this massive impact we are all having on our communities! It’s thrilling work, and we are so happy to support all the amazing, yet sometimes invisible, hunger relief organizations feeding thousands, and averting close to 80 million KG of CO2eq emissions from entering the atmosphere.
VFR: Tell us more about FoodMesh’s unique role in connecting food businesses to charity partners (like Vancouver Food Runners!) and how this process works.
JR: At FoodMesh, we consider ourselves a connector, bringing together diverse segments of a thriving food recovery ecosystem. Our network consists of more than 2,500 organizations across Canada.
This means that when a business hires us to support them in reaching their food recovery goals, we can draw on that diverse network to match the businesses with organizations best suited to help that business maximize their impact on the local community.
We facilitate the redistribution of food according to a strict hierarchy. Food that is still edible is diverted to hunger-relief organizations so it can be used to feed people. Food that is more suited to animal feed is donated to hobby farmers, and anything left over is composted or shared with industrial reworkers.
We couldn’t do our work without the outstanding commitment and hard work of each and every organization we work with — they are the food rescue heroes.
VFR: Technology and data are a big part of the work that you do. Please share your thoughts on how technology and data are making a big difference in the food waste prevention and reduction space: why it’s important, how it’s being used, and how you see technology being used in the future.
JR: FoodMesh uses technology to connect, coordinate, and measure the movement of unsold food to best and highest end use. As a platform, we provided trusted, reliable services to ensure food is moved safely and reliably to reduce risk and increase transparency on the end destination.
As for data — you can not change what you don’t measure. Data is critical to understanding the scale of food waste and identifying where the biggest opportunities for change are. Tracking exactly what is happening to every KG of food that is not being sold to consumers is the only way we can help the food supply chain understand what is happening, investigate the reasons behind it, and take measures to prevent it. Technology is the key to collecting that data.
VFR: In Canada, 58% of all the food produced is being wasted or lost, which is staggering. When it comes to preventing food waste as a society, what do you think are some of the big levers that need to be pulled to create substantial systems change to bring that number down?
JR: People only change if they have to or want to. Industry is slowly waking up to the problem of food waste, but unless there is a compelling reason to do so, it is unlikely to see widespread meaningful change. It is currently cheaper and easier for businesses to dispose of their unsold food than it is to divert it, and this enormous volume of lost or wasted food won’t change.
I believe the only way to make substantial systems change is for consumers to demand more from their food suppliers to have a public commitment and formal program in place to address their wasted food — and publish those results!
Furthermore, policy makers play a role to make sure the bar is consistent across Canada to ban organics in landfills. Food is not waste, so we must stop normalizing it by accepting it in landfills.
VFR: What’s next for FoodMesh this year? What’s getting you and your team excited in 2024?
JR: As the needs of our network continue to evolve, we are excited to broaden our suite of tools and services to support the food recovery network (both supply and the recipient network).
We are always focused on new ways to help our new and existing clients maximize the volume of food they are able to divert away from waste streams. We will be expanding our managed food diversion services to other types of food businesses (including wholesalers, convenience stores, and food service). We invite any organization seeking ways to reduce their food waste to give us a call!
We have a few active projects with several municipalities to focus on identifying and supporting their regional food recovery networks. And we also are helping re-tool our software to help hunger relief organizations make their jobs a little simpler. One example we’re really proud of is that we have a regional food bank repurposing our marketplace to be a re-distribution tool to share their inventory with their 120 agencies they work with, which we are honoured to support.
We’re so excited to see what 2024 has in store and remain as committed as ever to help reduce waste and feed more.
The FoodMesh team visiting one of their partners, CityReach Care Society.
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