Love Food Hate Waste Canada: Helping Everyone Prevent Waste

When it comes to our individual fight against climate change, where should we start?  We all know the importance of reducing our individual environmental impact, and food waste is one area we can all work on right away, with the right tools, right from the comfort of our own kitchens.

We spoke with Joanne Gauci, Campaign Manager at Love Food Hate Waste Canada, about how this initiative is helping to end food waste by educating Canadians on prevention at home.

What was the “spark” behind the Love Food Hate Waste Canada campaign?

Metro Vancouver first launched Love Food Hate Waste (LFHW) in the region in 2015. Then, building on the success of the regional campaign, we launched the initiative across Canada through the National Zero Waste Council in 2018. The motivation behind launching the campaign was to take a “prevention-first” approach to tackling food waste. Food waste is an urgent but solvable local and global challenge, and through LFHW Canada we are able to work with many partners across the country to inspire and empower people to make their food go further and waste less. Today, LFHW Canada represents a unique national collaboration, uniting a variety of business, government, and community champions all working together to tackle food waste in the home.

What do you consider to be your biggest success? Can you share any stories of the impact your work has had that have surprised you?

Everybody has a role to play in tackling food waste, and I think our biggest success has been engaging a variety of partners across the country so that everyone hears the same consistent messaging, whether they are at the grocery store or their community market, for example.  LFHW Canada has grown to become Canada’s leading resource for preventing household food waste due to the efforts of our partners and champions across the country.

By working together, we are able to have a much bigger impact than we can on our own, and Food Waste Action Week, which has taken place in March for the past two years in a row, is a great example of the power of aligning messaging locally and globally. This is an event that we run in collaboration with the international network of LFHW Canada partners, and for that one week, different organizations come together to raise awareness about the issue and opportunities for change. Food Waste Action Week 2023, which ran from March 6–12, was the most engaged campaign we have run since we launched in 2018, garnering over three million impressions across Canada for a week of coordinated activity.

How do you feel having a platform and community help to make the world better?

We hear first-hand that the Love Food Hate Waste Canada website and resources have helped families and individuals make their food last longer, save money, and ultimately prevent food waste. Our campaign partners are extremely active as well, sharing food waste prevention tips and messaging in their local communities, and you will see many of them at your summer farmers market. Food waste is one area where citizens can have a huge impact on climate change, and we feel proud to be working with others across the country to tackle this important issue. 

What are some of the challenges you typically face in creating content or building out your audience? 

We are lucky — there haven’t been a lot of challenges in our content creation to date; people generally love to talk about food and share their own tips and strategies for preventing food waste. However, we do a lot of myth-busting! For example, people often think that if they put their food in the green bin, then there isn’t an environmental impact. The green bin is absolutely the best way to manage unavoidable food waste, like banana peels and egg shells, but the truth is Canadians are wasting much more food than they realize. Our research suggests that approximately 63% of the food we throw out could have been eaten. That leaves a lot of room for improvement!

Are there any upcoming initiatives or projects you’d like to share?

This year we have a big focus on tackling fresh produce waste, which is the most commonly wasted food type in Canadian homes. We completed research that brings to life the journey of five different foods: blueberries, potatoes, lettuce, tomatoes, and apples. This research can be found on our website and underpins our current “Labour of Love” campaign, which aims to connect Canadians to the farmers who grow our food and emphasizes the important role of storage in keeping produce fresher for longer. 

Ultimately, this campaign is about getting people to think about the story behind their food, and all of the resources, labour, and care that went into making it. This is a multi-phased project that has been partly funded by Environment and Climate Change Canada, and we look forward to reporting on our key findings.  

How can people help support your mission? 

Share the message that #EveryBiteCounts and encourage fellow Canadians to visit lovefoodhatewaste.ca to get easy tips and tricks to prevent food waste at home.

This story was featured in the Make The World Better Magazine: