Champion Friday: Food Rescue Hero

The United Nations declared in 2015 that ⅓ of the world’s food suitable for human consumption goes to waste. The mind boggles.

How is it that any designed system results in excessive, planet degenerative waste alongside growing food insecurity across the world? It is hard to connect the dots here.

Champion Friday at totel.ly is always about finding the good things happening — the actions of people on the ground working to turn things around for the better.

Today we champion those efforts to stop filling the landfill with perfectly editable food. As in nature, waste is food.

Food Rescue Hero

Food Rescue Hero is working toward keeping the value in food — nourishing hungry households and cutting out the needless burden of decomposing waste. Alarmed by the immediate spike in hunger since COVID-19’s debut, these heroes are salvaging disregarded food and moving it to where it is needed. This rescue operation tackles the logistical problem of making this food accessible, whilst it is still a viable resource. Through an app, volunteers are alerted to surplus ‘waste’ (usually a retail outlet) and sees that it is collected and delivered to where it becomes an ‘asset — perhaps a family or a supportive organisation. We at totel.ly champion this story of local stewardship.

Other organisations are doing their bit, with Too Good To Go being a more familiar name in Europe. With their feathers ruffled by the excessive emission of greenhouse gases due to food waste, Too Good to Go is also dreaming of a planet without waste. This app service connects consumers with cafes, restaurants and food shops. Needless disposal of products from shelves is often based on the skewed aesthetics and arbitrary shelf life expiration dates. Each day ends with a pile of food destined for the landfill. Using the app, we can reserve that ‘waste’ and collect it at a friendly price. This has become a popular choice for many European city residents.

Imperfect Foods works at saving nature’s gifts from falling by the wasteside with efforts made to ensure tasty nutritious food is not judged by its looks. Oversized eggs, squiggly carrots , you name it — tastes good, looks interesting! Supermarkets and large retailers don’t know what they are missing.

With much of the world finding it increasingly difficult to ensure families are fed, how can we be ok with wasting any food?

The word is out there and efforts are being made. Artist Klaus Pichler’s collection One Third came from a frustration of what has been lambasted as the world’s dumbest problem and is challenging the disposable nature of the developed world. As awareness grows, we see a world of sharing and conscious consumerism and we are excited to see the innovations this brings.

Klaus Pichler’s photo Strawberry Fields is one of a series titled ‘One Third.’

Do you know of any initiatives happening local to you? Do you have your own hacks of how to get the most out of our food resources? If so, we would love to hear about them! We are still learning and love to share ideas!

Environmentally, yours ❤️