It’s impossible for the staff at Royal Bay Bakery to gauge how much bread they need to make on any given day as even the weather is among the various factors influencing how many customers will come looking for a loaf.
“It’s super hard to run a business sometimes when you’re just guessing every day,” said Brad Kiss, the Colwood bakery’s owner.
To avoid wasting the bread, the bakery has been sending unsold items to local farmers and in recent months jumped at the opportunity to donate leftovers to around 23 local in-need families every week. But Royal Bay Bakery has now taken up another waste-reducing option for whatever is left after making the donations.
It’s one of the around 60 Greater Victoria businesses signed on with Too Good To Go, an app that sees restaurants and grocers fill bags with their leftover food at the end of the day before people on the app buy the otherwise-wasted products for a third of the cost.
“It’s been going really good so far,” Kiss said. “It just kind of fell into my lap and I just really liked the concept.”
Sarah Soteroff of Too Good To Go said the app benefits businesses because they’re making money from food that was going to be thrown out and the upside for consumers is they get awesome food at a fraction of the original price.
“They’re also getting to support a local business and everyone is benefitting because we are helping to reduce the harmful effects of food waste on the environment.”
Kitchen and yard waste is the second-largest source of what ends up in the Capital Region’s landfill and just over three-quarters of that comes in the form of avoidable or donatable food waste. The region’s residential sector trashes organics more than any other type of material, with avoidable food waste being the top contributor from both single and multi-family homes.
Second Harvest, which bills itself as Canada’s largest food rescuer, found almost 60 per cent of the food produced in Canada is tossed every year. It’s a statistic Too Good To Go is determined to address as it hopes to be used by every store and be in every phone.
“We believe that there is a way to have a planet with no food waste and we believe that we can get there,” Soteroff said.
She added there’s an offshoot benefit of some free marketing for businesses, noting how she tends to open the app whenever she visits a new part of a city.
While the app may only bring marginal financial benefits, Soteroff said every little bit counts for businesses and it helps them throw out less of the food they put love into making.
“It’s a waste of money and it’s a waste of resources to throw that out and we really want people to start thinking differently about the surpluses that they produce in their lives and what they can do with it,” she said.
Kiss said money wasn’t a huge factor in the bakery signing on, but the app is a convenient way of helping them recoup some costs since users come right to the store to pick up their food.
“I’m pretty proud of what we’re doing and I think the new program we’ve got going on, it’s a great way to supplement some of the losses that we’ve had.”