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In January 2020, the City of Guelph and the County of Wellington officially launched Our Food Future, an ambitious initiative to create Canada’s first circular food economy. Funded by Infrastructure Canada, through the Smart Cities Challenge, it improves the economic, environmental, and social sustainability of the regional food system.
Circular Innovation Council, the County of Wellington, and the City of Guelph, working alongside local private and public interests, are piloting an innovative regional co-operative model shared by the local food and food waste value chain. The pilot optimizes organics recycling, improve food and food waste diversion, and mitigate food loss for the institutional, commercial, and industrial (IC&I) sector.
This pilot is made possible through the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Food Waste Reduction Challenge: Business Models.
Organic waste is collected by WM and delivered to Walker Environmental’s All Treat Farms in Arthur, ON for processing into valuable compost for biodiversity applications.
Food rescue is enabled by Second Harvest’s Food Rescue App, which allows businesses to notify local charitable partners there is edible food available for collection at a negotiated time.
Pilot data analysis, including greenhouse gas emissions avoided, tonnes food waste diverted per IC&I subsector, and economic analysis of the pilot model will be verified by the University of Guelph.
The pilot, created by Circular Innovation Council and hosted by the City of Guelph and the County of Wellington through the Our Food Future program, is also supported by Clean River Recycling Solutions, Glad, Grand River Agricultural Society, Longo’s, and Skyline Group of Companies to bring circular economy solutions to the region.
Skyline Group of Companies began with one student rental house in Guelph, and has since grown to be a leader in the Canadian property management industry. We understand the importance of practising environmental stewardship in the communities in which we operate; we believe it is a “win-win-win:” for our tenants, for our business, and for the environment. We are proud to support this innovative pilot to build Canada’s first circular food economy in Guelph-Wellington and we invite other local businesses to participate.
R. Jason Ashdown
Co-Founder & Chief Sustainability Officer
Skyline Group of Companies
Longo’s is proud to support this initiative and to be part of the growing constellation of efforts to reduce food waste and greenhouse gas emissions in our community. Longo’s has already seen the results of our organic waste program which has been instrumental in managing our environmental impact for 20 years. There’s more work to be done, but we know the future is bright with sustainability at the forefront.
Pat Pessotto
Executive Vice President of Sustainability & Industry Relations
Longo’s
Circular Innovation Council is a registered charity.
Charity Registration Number: 119112118 RR 0001
