Harnessing Technology for Food Rescue: A Conversation with the Leftovers Foundation

Ever wondered how we can combat food waste and food insecurity? Join us in an enlightening conversation with Cory Rianson, Executive Director of the Leftovers Foundation, an organization that has been tackling these pressing issues since 2012. Cory takes us on a journey from the inception of the Leftovers Foundation to its growth across Alberta and into Manitoba, debunks common misconceptions about food insecurity, and reveals the concerning issue of student food insecurity.

Discover how the Leftovers Foundation has harnessed the power of technology to improve the efficiency of food rescue, a practice with significant environmental and social benefits. We discuss their innovative app, Rescue Food, that connects volunteers with businesses looking to donate food. But that's not all, Cory also introduces us to the world of their Home Harvest program, a unique initiative aimed at reducing food waste by redirecting good food from landfills to tables.

Our conversation takes an inspiring turn as we learn about other organizations and individuals making waves in their respective communities. Tune in, be informed, and most importantly, be inspired to take action against food waste and insecurity in your own communities.

If you'd like to get involved with Leftovers we encourage you to volunteer. Visit their volunteer page here and download the app to give volunteering a try! Or sign up for their newsletter to stay up to date with what's happening.

About Our Guest
Cory Rianson is the Executive Director of Leftovers, and has worked for the past seven years leading organizations focused on reducing food insecurity. Prior to running the Leftovers Foundation, he managed a small food bank, growing the organization from a source of crisis food for those in need to a food security hub delivering a wide range of programming focused on reducing food insecurity. His goal is to take Leftovers even further in its food rescue mission, rescuing more and different types of food. Why should good food be rotting in landfill and emitting greenhouse gases, when it can go to those who need it? Good food should not go to waste!"
Who Inspires Cory? Multicultural Health Brokers & Saffron 

What is Give Amplify Connect?

There’s a story behind every action. Give Amplify Connect is a podcast from the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation that gives a voice to the Alberta-based charitable organizations creating community impact, changing lives, and making a difference. Driven by honest conversations with host Kristy Wolfe, it’s a chance for passionate changemakers to share their story.

Learn more at wolfepackwarriors.com

Podcast music used with artist permission
"Okay" by Ellen Braun

Transcript

Cory Rianson: 0:00

Is this food we can rescue? Can we set something up? Doesn't work. We're always looking for new food donors, and so the more folks you know about us and connect us into businesses that are interested and willing to work with us, the more food we can rescue, the less goes to landfill and the more it goes to helping people in need.

Podcast Intro: 0:23

Welcome to Give Amplify Connect, the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation podcast that dives deeper into the stories of the charitable organizations in Alberta that are making a difference. Host and producer Kristy Wolfe sits down with the leaders of the nonprofit world to learn more about their purpose, hopes and dreams. Settle in for an honest conversation with Christy about the impact people are making in their communities and how they keep moving forward.

Kristy Wolfe: 0:55

With me today is Cory Rianson. Cory is the executive director of the Leftovers Foundation. Thanks for coming on, Cory. . ?

Cory Rianson: 1:04

telling us a bit about Leftovers Foundation.

Kristy Wolfe: 1:05

Yeah, for sure.

Cory Rianson: 1:08

So Leftovers Foundation is a food rescue charity, so we were founded in 2012 when Lourdes Juan, our founder, was visiting a bakery with her cousin, saw how much bread they were throwing out at the end of the day and all this bread was totally fine, it's just old. They have new product for the next day and definitely just thought what a waste, what a shame there's people who could use this. So loaded up her car, drove it to a local agency to drop it off and they could take it, and that was our first route. We call it and we've been basically doing that ever since, starting in Calgary in 2012, coming into Edmonton in 2007. And then expanding into Winnipeg in 2021. And through a few new communities in Alberta this last year as well. Yeah, I saw a couple of social media posts recently about new places in Alberta.

Kristy Wolfe: 1:56

That's really exciting.

Cory Rianson: 2:01

And we feel there's food to rescue everywhere, and so we're trying to kind of branch out and always rescue more food, all right, Cory, how did you get involved with Leftovers?

Cory Rianson: 2:10

Yeah, prior to my role with Leftovers was the executive director of a small food bank here in Edmonton focused on students at the University of Alberta With that organization in that role. We were actually one of the organizations that Leftovers and Edmonton supported. We would get pastries and different baked goods and a few different kind of routes or different types of donated food over my time there but from local businesses in Edmonton. So I was always kind of aware of the organization and then had worked with them a few times on different routes and different ways of doing it. I had worked with them a few times on different panels on food security or that kind of thing, interacted with Leftover staff, and I had been with that organization for about five years and really wanted to Like I was really involved with the issue of student food insecurity but saw how many parallels there were in that to just broader food insecurity, what the community at large kind of faces, and really wanted to move, transition and working with that and so when the role at Leftovers came up, thought this is a really great fit.

Cory Rianson: 3:07

You know this is an organization that's serving people across the province, actually like across two provinces, alberta and Manitoba, and it's an organization that's doing something really interesting, has a bit of a different approach, is a new player in the field of organizations that are working on food insecurity, so I just thought it was a really good fit and happy to be here since.

Kristy Wolfe: 3:28

Well, there's a couple of things that stood out for me as you were talking. One of the things was I was a teacher before I was involved with the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation and food insecurity was an issue in every single school I worked in, and trying to find breakfast, lunches, snacks, depending on the different commitment levels that schools had had at any given time, was always an issue. So I'm really glad you brought up the idea of university students, because people tend to put a picture in their mind of who it is they're supporting in a food bank, and I think that picture is not right 100% and I couldn't express that more with, say, a university food bank.

Cory Rianson: 4:03

So you know, there's the picture of a university student who's going to be an 18 to 24 year old probably comes certain amount of privilege. Parents are wealthy because they can afford to send their students university. But honestly, what we dealt with a lot was international graduate students. So really they're new immigrants, they're people with families in the process of moving to Canada, trying to make a life here. It's no different than, say, settlement agencies that work with newcomers in the city, and so, yeah, there's a real misconception.

Cory Rianson: 4:31

And the other thing you mentioned with student food insecurity or programming within schools like Canada is the only G7 country that doesn't have a national school food program, which is a kind of appalling fact. I mean, there's been some developments and promises around developing something, but it's such a patchwork system. It's usually largely supported by a local food bank and within all of this there's just the assumption that once the get ages out of school and maybe is attending some form of post-secondary, that now they're fine, they're on their own. In reality, you know, there's still supports that are needed. So, yeah, there's a lot that could be done to kind of improve things for students of all ages.

Kristy Wolfe: 5:07

So, Cory, one of the things that I'm not always clear on is what's the difference between food rescue and food bank?

Cory Rianson: 5:14

Yeah. So I would say a food bank is a you know, it's a distribution hub or point. It's where people go to access services. They can pick up a hamper.

Cory Rianson: 5:24

Food rescue is the act of like, rescuing that food, like also called gleaning recovery.

Cory Rianson: 5:30

Gleaning is a kind of very old word and it's honestly something that's been done throughout human history is there's like Edmonton Food Bank does a good job of talking about this that they're actually they were the first food bank in Canada and their actual name is the Edmonton Gleaners Association and they always talk about.

Cory Rianson: 5:47

There's this old painting, french painting, of people going and gathering the leftover wheat from a field at harvest in the 1800s. And that act of gleaning, you know, has always been a part of human food production and agriculture trying to ensure nothing goes to waste but recognizing that, like in some harvest practices and everything in the system, there's going to be things that are missed and that these gleaning activities can take place. So we really focus on the gleaning or the rescue piece of ensuring that food that, for whatever reason, can't be sold, still perfectly good. The bread I mentioned is a good example. It's just a old bread, there's not really anything wrong with it. This would go to landfill under normal circumstances, that this instead goes to people who can eat it, which is the best use for it.

Kristy Wolfe: 6:32

When you are talking, I'm thinking about all the different partners you have. So you have places of business that are producing food that you pick up from. You have services that provide food to Clients, I guess and maybe you have a better way to say that and then you also have your people that are getting the food from place to place. Will you Explain to the listeners just what that looks like?

Cory Rianson: 6:53

yeah for sure. So we. It's really exactly as you. As you described, we work with, like you know, retail food businesses. This can be anything from a bakery to grocery store to sometimes like a wholesaler and in cities where we have a warehouse can deal with higher volume donations, but really anybody that touches food within the kind of broader retail food system. Service agencies are folks that work with individuals in need. These can be shelters, soup kitchens, mutual aid groups, community fridges, really anybody that's doing programming to serve people who are experiencing food insecurity and in need of food assistance programming. And then you know our community members the volunteers is anybody. It's folks who want to get back in their community. We're looking for a way to get engaged and Help their neighbors.

Cory Rianson: 7:40

So how we kind of manage all this is we have our app called rescue food. When we set up one of these relationships between a business and a service agency, we call it a route and will post that on the app so anybody can download the app. You just go to the Apple app store or the google play search rescue food or leftovers and will come up and you can make an account and then see what routes are in your local community if we're in that community. All the information is there. You need to complete it.

Cory Rianson: 8:05

You get access to training materials, details on if you sign up for a route, what time you're picking up, where exactly the pick up instructions are, all the drop off instructions. You get introduced to our city lead in that city. So everything you need to start volunteering and one of the really great things with our volunteer experiences at your own schedule. You open that app. You can see like, yeah, I have some time on friday and look, there's a route that needs to be completed between two and five friday and I'm available. I can do that. I can claim it, sign up and get it done. So it lets you volunteer as much or as little as you want and in a way that fits your schedule.

Kristy Wolfe: 8:41

So do you have some people that volunteer and do consistent routes?

Cory Rianson: 8:45

yeah, absolutely, we do. So. We have some really dedicated people who are, you know, the backbone of our work. Volunteers who are doing, say, maybe, all the routes on a given day or they always do this route. It's a great opportunity. If you like, if you have time and you like this route, you can permanently claim it. You just have a conversation with the city lead and then it's yours. You know, every wednesday morning you're gonna do this route and that's a great way to have a regular volunteer experience. Routes are usually fairly quick, like rarely is it gonna take you more than a half hour, is it usually just Drive to point a pickup, drop off at point B and you're not. So, yeah, we have a definite group of dedicated volunteers in each city and it's it's fantastic. They show up week after week to complete these routes, so we always really appreciate their, their commitment.

Kristy Wolfe: 9:33

Well, anything. That's. One of the things that drew me to left overs when we started learning about it was the flexibility, because that can be a real barrier to volunteering your time. I think that sometimes a barrier to people volunteering is there not sure what it's going to be like and sitting in your own car picking up and dropping off is not really a big deal. I'm also guessing that people start to build relationships with service agencies and they might get involved in that way to Absolutely yeah, especially when folks find a route they like works for their schedule.

Cory Rianson: 10:03

I think they really appreciate that they get to connect with the service agency directly. They can build a relationship with that person. Say me, really, on the business side of it's the same folks there every week. There's a very, I think, hands on community connection element to this. We always talk about it in the context of, like we're mobilizing community. Yeah, so through the volunteers service agency, through the business, I mean what we do. There's a lot of organization to it and organizing the logistics, but it's once we set it up it really just kind of happens, which is the great part of it. It's community getting involved, supporting each other.

Cory Rianson: 10:37

And using technology for good exactly, yeah, makes it much easier to manage it all with the app and everything. So it's been a real help to scale up the programming and to do more and have a high volume of routes going on on a weekly basis.

Kristy Wolfe: 10:50

That's exactly it. Oh, I love it. Okay, so the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation. Our tagline is give, amplify, connect, and so how can others give, amplify or connect with leftovers?

Cory Rianson: 11:03

For sure. So maybe for the starting with the give part, I mean, we're a charity. Our work is funded through charitable donations and grants, like the relationship with Wolfe Pack Warriors. Yeah, we provide, I would argue, an essential service, not just to the service agencies but, honestly, to the businesses as well, because a big part of this we haven't really touched on is the food waste element. Right that if we didn't weren't recovering this food and directing it to service agencies that can use it typically, it would go to landfill to rot and release methane, which is a more impactful greenhouse gas, and it's just the amount of food wasted in Canada.

Cory Rianson: 11:36

In the world generally, though, like it's a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, to global warming, to the current climate crisis, it's a bit of a travesty when we have this resource that's valuable, to be honest, and I think that the current inflationary moment has really highlighted that. Everybody sees their grocery bills going up, so everyone can really understand that this food that is becoming more and more expensive rotting in landfill is not a great system, and so we work to prevent this and redirect it, but we do it all under a charitable model, which can be tough. I think there's going to be things that are changing in the future around legislation, rules, bylaws, around food waste, but right now I mean we need as much support as we can get to constantly scale up, rescue more food, grow and support our operations. So any kind of support we appreciate, as well as looking at how people getting involved through volunteering download the app.

Cory Rianson: 12:29

Trying to route out is a great way to get involved, and if you have any connections to retail food businesses, if you own or operate a business, even if you just work at a business that you see food is being thrown away, at the end of the day, there's not really any reason it needs to go in the garbage. It's fine. Maybe there's a further use for it. Get in touch with us and we can see. You know, is this food we can rescue? Can we set something up? Does it work? We're always looking for new food donors, and so the more folks who know about us and connect us into businesses that are interested and willing to work with us, the more food we can rescue, the less goes to landfill and the more it goes to helping people in need.

Kristy Wolfe: 13:02

Well, and rescue food is not your only program. You have another program that works on harvest. Do you want to explain that one a little bit?

Cory Rianson: 13:09

Yeah, so our home harvest program is similar in concept to rescue food, except instead of working with retail food businesses there, we're working with we would call them home growers, or really anybody who has a garden, a fruit tree.

Cory Rianson: 13:22

If you have produce but same thing, I mean if it's going to waste because it's, you know, it's not getting picked, it's falling on the ground and rotting, or you have a bumper crop and you just don't know what to do with it, or if you, you know, have trouble harvesting your fruit trees or your garden. Home harvest is basically the same concept. So we would onboard you as a grower. You could post your route or your harvest and we would have volunteers come out, ideally to come and help assist with the harvest, if that's what you need. Or if you just want to donate part of the harvest, whatever your produce, through leftovers, to an organization in need, we can facilitate that as well. Have somebody come and pick it up and drop it off. So it's a great way to engage people in the community. More broadly, home gardeners and you know, garden produce is always a great thing to receive.

Kristy Wolfe: 14:11

A number of our listeners are in Edmonton and Calgary, as well as the Bow Valley. The Bow Valley doesn't have access to the app. I have downloaded it and I can see the Calgary route. If I'm in Calgary, I could just pick up a route as I happen to be there. I have found this really easy to understand and I just want to say thank you for that, because taking the difficulty out of trying to volunteer is a huge part of it. Is there more of a need at a certain time of year? I know we're coming up on Giving Tuesday and that holiday season where people tend to want to donate to food organizations more and more. What is the most helpful at this time of year for you?

Cory Rianson: 14:46

For sure. Holiday season is big for any charity. It's the giving season. It's where a lot of people choose to make donations for the year. We will have campaigns running for Giving Tuesday and for the holiday season more broadly. You can always go to our website to donate or, if you want to stay in touch with us and see what we're doing, subscribe to our newsletter and you can find that on our website. It's a great way. We have a monthly newsletter talking about what we're doing. We talk about issues of food security, of food waste in it. Great way to stay in touch and see what we're doing at any given time. Really, if folks are interested in supporting us would be to go to our website and we have a donate button at the top. We really appreciate that, as we are entirely donation and grant funded.

Kristy Wolfe: 15:26

I will definitely include all of that information the website, the newsletter, how to volunteer and how to download the app in the show notes for this episode as well. I'm going to end with who is a person or what's an organization that you are inspired by.

Cory Rianson: 15:44

A lot. I think one of the blessings of working within the food security space is how much happens and how much people just kind of see a need and try to meet it. I know there's an organization in Edmonton called Multicultural Health Brokers that I've followed for a while. I've worked with them on a few different projects. I just think their model and what they do is fantastic. They're focused on newcomers and they actually create I'm going to explain their program not very well, but they identify and champion they would call them cultural brokers within those, say, cultural communities or newcomer communities that can then lead and assist other newcomers. They would also say in a Somali community in Edmonton they would find someone champion them, actually employ them as a broker and then that person could help the rest of their community navigate services, do all of this. They really kind of reach in to communities through that community to provide that support and through all of that they run a grocery run program. They support a ton of families. They have a lot of food programming that wraps around that. Knowing that food is essential, they're fantastic.

Cory Rianson: 16:52

There's also Chef Dean from Saffron Catering in Calgary. He's a personal chef and caterer that we've worked with a lot. A few organizations have worked with. He drives food out to Siksika every week, just kind of out of like because they don't have the access to transportation. He just kind of does it. We have rescued many, a large rescue, because Dean just calls me and says hey, I know about a truck with 15 pallets of potatoes or I've heard about this, I've heard about this. He knows the organizations that are working within this space who are doing good work, and just tries to connect and work All. Wow, this is not his job, he's a chef, he is his own catering company, runs at the same time. I don't know how, I don't know when he sleeps, but he does a lot of good.

Kristy Wolfe: 17:40

But that's amazing, right, that's exactly it Like he's on the ground in that industry and has access to information and to organizations and people that can connect him together. And I think that's really when we are talking about Give, amplify, connect. That's a huge piece of it. That made me think of somebody in the Bow Valley who is in a similar position Mountain Fire Foods. His name is Damian, who has taken on a number of different projects related to food security, while doing catering and running his own business. So I'm glad I know about Dean, as well as the multicultural health brokers. So thank you for sharing those with me. Cory, is there anything that we didn't get a chance to touch on that you want people to know about?

Cory Rianson: 18:16

Maybe I would just say kind of building up what we just said. I think one of the really interesting it's the fun part of food rescue, but the hard part of food rescue is just about what's happening that day. Like I like to say, every food rescue, even from you, know our basic routes that are posted. Like it's going to be a little bit different every time because it depends on what food is there. You know who's on staff today at the business, what's happening with the agency.

Cory Rianson: 18:42

It's been a really interesting and complex task to try to design a system that responds to something that is constantly evolving, constantly different. The larger rescues really are a better example of this, where it's just like something happens and food obviously has like a short shelf life, like we have to react to it almost immediately to try to cover this, move it to somewhere and get it used, and so it's constantly evolving, it's constantly reacting. So it's a really interesting role to be in and system to kind of work within, but is challenging to kind of constantly have something that can react to kind of all cases so similar to exactly what we're talking about there.

Kristy Wolfe: 19:21

Yeah, no, that's amazing. Thank you so, Cory. Thanks so much for coming on and talking about this with us.

Cory Rianson: 19:27

Yeah, no, it's my pleasure. Thanks so much for having me.

Kristy Wolfe: 19:31

Thanks for joining us today. The purpose of the Wolfe Pack Warriors Foundation is to give, amplify and connect. Visit our website, www. wolfepackwarriors. com to learn more about this initiative or connect with us about a registered charity that is important to you. Don't miss the next episode. Follow Give Amplify Connect on your favourite podcast platform to hear from other Alberta based nonprofits about the work they are doing. On a final note, remember to take care of yourself and your pack.