Record food price hike has some Maritimers cutting down on food waste

At a time when the cost of pretty much everything seems to be sky-high, the latest inflation figures, which came out Wednesday, were shocking when it came to the price of food.

"Well, the numbers came out this morning and they're saying on average that prices are up 9.7 per cent,” said Janet Music, research program coordinator at the Agri-Foods Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University.

Music says normally Canadians don't talk about food waste enough, but she figures that will change now that letting too much go into the green bin stands to hit people hard in the wallet.

"We usually consider the climate consequences of wasting food, but now we're getting into the territory where the financial consequences of wasting food is going to be much too high for many households,” Music said.

At Loaves and Fishes in Sydney, they've never been in a position where they can waste much food.

Now that inflation has gone out of control, the food bank and community kitchen has had to switch to making the day's meals as they go.

"Before, we used to make it all in the morning,” said general manager Marco Amati. “And then have it ready for them all day, and have some left over that we'd have to throw out. Now, we make so much that would feed, say, 100 people. Then if we get 120 or 130, it's not hard to just throw something on."

At a restaurant just around the corner, they have a simple way of making sure the day's leftovers get used on the rare occasions they have them.

"So we put a call out there on social media,” said James MacDonald, co-owner of JJ’s Plant-Based Eats.

“We just tell people 'we've got extra food here, we've got more than we planned on having and if you don't mind coming to help us out, you'll leave with a full belly and we'll have an empty fridge.’ So it's kind of a win-win situation."

Music says now is a good time to get into the habit of meal planning for the entire week.

"Often we shop for convenience,” she said. “But now we actually have to take that time to kind of map out what we're going to eat and have a plan for it. [A plan] in the grocery store, but also have a plan for it when it's in our cupboards, in our fridge."

Music adds that many of us now have an advantage — born by the pandemic — that can help us save food and money.

"I think now that we're working from home, we can heat up those leftovers a lot easier than perhaps when we were taking it to work and perhaps slipping out to the restaurant on our lunch breaks,” she said.

Music says research shows 63 per cent of food wasted — or nearly two thirds — is edible.