VANCOUVER — A&W Canada has announced the national expansion of its in-restaurant food rescue program in partnership with Second Harvest.
To date, 441 A&W restaurants across Canada have joined the Second Harvest Food Rescue app. More restaurants are expected to join soon, enabling community groups such as food banks, shelters, meal programs and community centres to pick up surplus food donations from restaurants. These groups then transform A&W’s protein and produce into meals such as soups, salads and wraps for those facing food insecurity. Through food donations from A&W’s supply chain and restaurants, more than 1.24 million meals have been provided for communities in need.
A report by Second Harvest indicates that nearly 42 per cent of all the food wasted in Canada could be rescued to help combat hunger among the 8.7 million Canadians experiencing food insecurity. To date, A&W’s food rescue efforts with Second Harvest have prevented 4.8 million pounds of greenhouse gasses from entering the atmosphere and have donated meals to 987 non-profit organizations across Canada.
“Our restaurants are able to thrive because of the support from the community. Their teams have found this program incredibly rewarding, to see how their food rescue efforts can give back,” says Susan Senecal, CEO of A&W Canada. “As a restaurant, our core purpose is to feed people, and this program allows us to extend that to those facing hunger.”
“Donating surplus edible food is not only the right thing to do — it’s also an environmentally-sound choice. Distributing food to those in need reduces food-related greenhouse gas emissions by 12 times compared to composting, and 30 times compared to upcycling. Partnerships with major restaurants like A&W, who generously donate their surplus food, are invaluable in our mission to combat food waste and food insecurity in Canada,” says Lori Nikkel, CEO of Second Harvest.
