Canadian Entrepreneurs changing our food system, one idea at a time
Entrepreneurs are seeing opportunities at the intersection of climate change and food system reform.
If you were hoping that that both levels of government in Canada were going to finally address systemic problems in our food system with their latest budgets, then you came away disappointed.
The Federal government, in a spasm of additional spending on a lot of ‘green tech’ initiatives, simply forgot about investing in the the green of fresh food. Their much-touted Food Policy of 2019 is a complete bust, as work on implementing it has been abandoned. And, as for helping farmers, the Liberals all voted against providing some financial relief in the form of an exemption to the carbon tax for on-farm use of certain fuels. Seeing our Minister of Agriculture stand and vote no for this, probably felt like a stab through the heart for many financially strapped farmers, and was a very visible sign of how disconnected politicians are from farmers.
The one ray of light in the Spring budget ritual was the announcement of additional Federal and Provincial funds for Quebec’s sustainable agricultural plan. As part of the renewal in the Federal Canadian Agricultural Plan, or CAP, both the Federal and Quebec governments are pumping into the system almost $1 billion dollars to continue the work of the Quebec government in transitioning the provincial agricultural system to more sustainable practices, things like more investment in greenhouses, and assisting farmers to transition from destructive soil practices to more regenerative practices.
For example, just Quebec’s greenhouse investment program over the past three years has meant an increase from 40 thousand tonnes to 77 thousand tonnes of local vegetable production in the province. And more than 200 projects are on the books for funding in the next two years, an incredible success driven by entrepreneurial farmers, and cheap electricity supplied by Hydro Quebec.
So, while we wait on other governments to provide the funding and necessary policy direction to move forward on more systemic reform, entrepreneurs have stepped into some of the gaps to solve some of our more pressing food system challenges.
What’s astonishing to me is watching younger entrepreneurs, conscious of the changes in the environment wrought by climate change, seeing specific niche business opportunities in transitioning our economy, and food system, to be more resilient and sustainable over time.
Take Josh Domingues, the CEO of Flashfood. I’ve written about Flashfood before. It’s a digital tool that lets consumers buy meat, dairy, produce and other grocery items nearing their best-before date at a discount from major retail grocery retail chains. So, while government spins its wheels on how to address food waste — putting in place seed funding for technological solutions that will take years to test and implement at s cale— Flashfood has just moved ahead with a very simple idea: develop a platform that connects consumers to food that is about to be thrown out. And give them a considerable discount (around 50%) in the process. This is a solution that kills two birds with one stone: food waste and food inflation. My apologies to the birds.
Domingues is 34 years old. He started in Management consulting fresh out of University and quickly developed a reputation for his ability to develop relationships, a skill that came in handy when he first started to sell his idea to the major grocery chains. You wouldn’t think it would be a hard sell. After all, this sounds like something grocery retailers would jump on — customers save money, they sell stock they’d otherwise toss, and food waste is diverted from landfills, reducing harmful methane emissions. An win for all concerned.
Even with those advantages, it took him about a year to convince his first major retailer — Loblaw — to jump on board, and once he did, the industry took notice. Flashfood now operates in 1,400 locations across Canada and the United States. To date, they’ve diverted over 50 million pounds of food from landfills, preventing 95 million pounds of CO2-equivalent GHG emissions from reaching the atmosphere. That’s the equivalent of taking 9,285 gas-powered passenger vehicles off the road for a year.
The key, though, is that Flashfood has saved shoppers more than $120 million, helping thousands of families afford fresh food at a time when rising food prices is making that increasingly difficult. It’s a record that Federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland should be envious of and a solution that should inspire the policy-makers to support, nationwide. Domingues just needs to get Sobey’s and Metro interested, and things would really take off for Canadian consumers.
Justin Abbis, CEO, MRKTBOX Inc. didn’t start as a food system revolutionary. An environmentalist and former avalanche forecaster in the Yukon, Abbiss apparently idolized leaders like Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, who helped popularize “B Corp” certification as the social and environmental gold standard.
Today, Abbiss has his own certified B Corp in MRKTBOX, a Hamilton-based grocery company that supports small-scale farms, bakers, coffee roasters and other producers. It’s a platform that allows food businesses in the Hamilton area — an area rich in top-quality farmland and a burgeoning small producer community — to connect directly with consumers. With a clear focus on sustainability and environmental stewardship, MRKTBOX procures food items using a decision tree with four main variables: Local, Organic, Local & Organic and Ethical Production Methods.
In addition to these four criteria, they also consider the producer’s farming methods, to ensure they are purchasing food from farms that emphasise biodynamic farming, biodiversity and food that is free of pesticides. This part of their sourcing philosophy is to encourage producers who are interested in enriching and protecting the local ecosystem, rather than simply reproducing industrial, chemical-based farming methods.
MRKTBOX has three brick-and-mortar stores, plus a carbon-free delivery service (using delivery bikes and one electric vehicle). As a result of its focus on local producers (located within 100 kilometres of their stores), MRKTBOX has reinvested more than $2.5 million into the local ecosystem in 2022.
Last, but certainly not least, Jennie Coleman, President of Equifruit, a Montreal-based distributor of tropical fruit that’s been in business since 2006. Take the humble banana. Take the price of bananas. Bananas are fruit that can only be grown in tropical climates, yet, when they arrive at your local market, they are frequently far cheaper than the apples grown down the road from you. The ‘why’ of that situation is a litany of industrialized food production practices that make your hair curl — forced child labour, doubtful insectside and pesticide practices, land theft — the list goes on.
Equifruit aims to change that dynamic by ensuring that the fruit it imports are 100% fair-trade certified, which guarantees through traceable audits that working conditions are safe and equitable and wholesale pricing set by its producers in South America and Mexico are sustainable for the farmers who grow the product. This is the 3rd wave coffee model applied to tropical fruit. Niche cafes in cities across North America and Europe have direct relations with local producers, paying a much higher price for coffee beans for both quality and equitable working conditions and practices. Starbucks, Lavazza and Nespresso don’t do this; they buy their beans from large wholesalers who have no interest whatsoever in ensuring that producers are paid equitably; their interest is cheap coffee beans at low wholesale prices to drive up their profits, and share price.
So far, Equifruit has made distribution deals for its product with Longo’s in Ontario (now owned by Sobey’s), Costco, Farm Boy locations and in over 100 independent grocers. In Quebec, they have distribution deals with IGA, Rachel-Bery and Lufa Farms. They have focussed on the banana for now, but the model could work for any other tropical fruit that is grown for export.
These entrepreneurs are betting on a much-changed business environment, where consumers want alternatives that address the health of farms, the welfare of farmers and the pressing issue of our day: climate change.
As they and others expand their business models — providing consumers with access to affordable food, food rich in micronutrients from their neighbours and food that, even if its grown in a different hemisphere, is accessible to many and provides a decent living for the farmer who produces it — then the role of government is to step back, support successful business models with fiscal policy that allows them to expand and grow, and reap the rewards in their success.
I’d go further and state that these entrepreneurs, and many more like them, should form the backbone of any revived effort at developing a true Food Policy for Canada. They are delivering solutions, today, to many of the problems targeted by government, while government — with a few exceptions — seems lost in a bureaucratic haze of endless consultations, no leadership and dreams of incubating magical technical solutions.
By simply delivering, these entrepreneurs are helping Canadians, today, not in some distant future. For that, they deserve our support and admiration.
