Agriculture Committee on May 26th, 2014

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

I want to welcome everybody back from our week in our ridings.

We are studying the supply chain retail sector and food waste prevention.

We have with us today from Value Chain Management International, Dr. Martin Gooch, chief executive officer, and he's on video conference from Oakville, Ontario.

Welcome, Dr. Gooch. You have seven minutes. Since you're the main witness today, if you take a little longer than that, that would be fine, and then we will go into rounds of questioning from the committee. Please go ahead.

[Martin Gooch, Chief Executive Officer, Value Chain Management International]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to present to you today and to field your questions. I won't take up much time with the introduction, because hopefully the main value will come from our discussion.

We've been focusing on food waste for quite a few years. It's only since 2010, when we published our first report “Food Waste in Canada”, which brought the topic of food waste to the fore of many people's thinking across the Canadian agrifood industry, that we identified it as a key issue for us as an industry and as a society going forward both domestically and internationally, particularly given the importance of exports to us.

Food waste is an enormous environmental and economic issue that is reflected in the fact that this House of Commons committee is focusing on it. Yet it still flies under the radar of many businesses and organizations, often because we do not measure it and do not know enough about it to implement effective policies and programs, whether we're speaking from the public, governmental, or federal-provincial levels, or from the individual businesses and industry organizations themselves. In my view, that leads to our placing more focus on how to manage the diversion of food waste rather than how to reduce it at source. Unless we reduce it at source, we're never going to be able to achieve the outcomes we otherwise could.

We look around the world, and Canada does trail compared to jurisdictions such as the U.K. and Australia, and compared to a number of initiatives in, say, the U.S. and Europe. We have a lack of a coordinated policy framework and a lack of strategy. Most of what occurs is from businesses doing it off their own back versus being incentivized or encouraged to do so more proactively. That has occurred, for instance, in the U.K. with WRAP, the waste reduction action plan. Many people see the public face of WRAP as one instance. Yet what occurs behind the scenes of WRAP is the most valuable part of the entire program.

We should also not forget that WRAP did not begin in food. It's only moved to food in recent years, while there was increasing recognition in the U.K. industry that food was an issue. Food and environmental responsibility was a key issue for the industry as a whole.

Hopefully today we'll certainly touch on my perspective of where we can go forward, and what the opportunities and the strategies can be, and hopefully move Canada to be more at the forefront of what is occurring elsewhere.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Okay. That was short and to the point and gives us lots of time for questions, which you opened up for us.

With that I will move to Madame Brosseau for five minutes, please.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank Dr. Gooch. I've read your report and have a few questions.

Could you explain to us in a little more detail what WRAP is exactly, and how successful it has been in dealing with food waste reduction?

[Martin Gooch]

Certainly.

WRAP is the waste reduction action plan. It was started by funding from the U.K. government, as a diversion from tipping fees. In the late 1980s and early 1990s the government was going to introduce legislation and higher dumping fees as a way of reducing waste dumping. England is a fairly small place, and dumping, tipping, etc., is an issue. As well, they tend to be at the forefront of environmental issues.

The industry came together and said to government they agreed something needed to be done, but if they were going to be charged higher fees they believed some of that should go into a fund to help industry proactively adapt to these measures. They asked where the government would like them to go, and that initiative led to the formation of WRAP.

WRAP was going for approximately, I believe, five to eight years before it moved on into food. Previously it focused on the general manufacturing industry. Its initiatives have led to a measurable reduction in food waste along the chain, and it's also identified that there is still an enormous way to go. They've reduced food waste per se, and also in other ways such as packaging waste and energy waste. It's ironic that one of the people who now works heavily with WRAP on the food waste reduction initiative is Dr. Peter Whitehead, who headed the Food Chain Centre, which was part of the Institute of Grocery Distribution. They've now realized that what he was doing at IGD with introduction of lean to the agriculture and agrifood business was the best, most effective way of reducing waste that we know. It's gone full circle.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

In this report it says that food waste is 9% field, 3% transportation, 8% food service, 18% packaging-processing, 11% retail stores, and 51% of the food waste in Canada is happening at home.

I was wondering if you could tell us if you think the Canadian government has a role to play in limiting or helping to mitigate food waste, and also the positive financial, economic, and environmental impacts if something were to be done, if leadership were to be taken.

[Martin Gooch]

I feel that public institutions have a role to play in this. We have seen many regulations introduced. Some of them would increase not reduce food waste. Part of that is its interpretation, as well as the lack of coordination among the different regulations at the different levels of government.

Yes, I see that public institutions have an important leadership role to play. The figure you mentioned, that 51%, is based on estimates because we don't have hard, objective numbers about the amount of food wasted in Canada.

The overall $27 billion we estimated does not include sectors such as seafood. The overall real number, and then the value of knock-on effects, is far greater than $27 billion. The fact that 51% of waste at the consumer level is partly an outcome of the way the rest of the industry operates.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Since most food is wasted at home, do you think some kind of study or education could be done around labelling? Expiry dates are an issue.

[Martin Gooch]

We know some of the issues surrounding labelling. As you said, the best by date, the use by date, are certainly factors that play into the amount of food waste. Certainly more can be done on coordinating the use of those labels, because for instance you can have two products side by side, they're packaged at different facilities by the same company, and those use by dates are presented differently. I've been confused by them. For instance, you could have the year first, the day first, the month first, and unless you take a double look you could be confused, so someone who is overly cautious could throw food away unnecessarily.

It's one of the ways industry operates that exacerbates the amount of waste we see in the home.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much.

We'll now go to Mr. Lemieux, please, for five minutes.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you.

Thanks for being with us today.

If I could just take a moment to position this meeting in our larger study, the committee is doing a study on the supply chain, and we're looking at it from the farm gate right through to the consumer and perhaps beyond, which would include such things as waste. We've studied things like the red meat sector, and we've done grains and oilseeds and the beverage sector. Now we're trying to focus on the distribution system and the retail system, which could also include contact with consumers, because consumers are plugging in at the retail system.

This conversation is focusing in on waste. We were hoping to have some distributors come in today to talk to us about their operations and how food products move through their institutions and where they go. For example, is there waste especially on time-sensitive types of food items?

But as I think about waste and some of the comments you've made, my inherent guess is that at every step of the way—at the farm gate, in the retail sector, in the distributor sector, and even in the consumer sector—they want to reduce waste, because it's a loss of money. I'm a father and I have five children, and I don't want to throw food out, right? I want us to eat our food. I think it's the same at every step of the way. If food has to be discarded or disposed of, it's lost revenue. It's a loss of revenue for whatever step in the chain that is, so I wanted to ask perhaps a few questions about that.

I'd like to ask, for example, about food safety. I think people are more food safety conscious. I think governments are more food safety conscious, as are the food processors. Everyone in the system is. You mentioned an expiry date, but people also have a sense.... When things come out of their original packaging and go into other packaging in the consumer's fridge, there might not be a date on them anymore, but you can tell when something should not be eaten or is starting to go, in a sense, certainly at the family level. I wanted to ask you for your impression on waste versus food safety concerns, both within the food chain and at the consumer level, because there are two different things going on there.

[Martin Gooch]

Food safety definitely plays into food waste or the creation of food waste, but it doesn't necessarily play into it in the way you might expect. For instance, let's go back a few years to XL Foods. All that meat was wasted. That meat could have been used in other respects; it could even have gone into pet food, for instance. There was no need to have literally thrown it into the ground.

So part of it is how we use food that we do not see as fit for human consumption, and also, part of that whole issue revolves around how that business operates. It goes back to process and how we encourage agrifood businesses to actually operate. As a people, we have become very wary of food safety.

On the other issue you mentioned, I fully agree. I don't think anyone—or very few people—would ever go out and purposely waste food, but we do it in small amounts that add up. A few lettuce leaves here that get thrown out, a salad that's turned into a science experiment there.... So yes, food safety does weigh into the food waste argument and discussion, but not necessarily in the same ways that we see at, say, face value.

Also, from the distribution standpoint, the way our distribution system operates or tends to operate can itself be a cause of food waste, such as, for instance, focusing on large volumes and focusing on price. From a distributor perspective.... I've had this actual discussion with retailers around the world. If you speak to them behind closed doors, they're in a real dilemma. Do we actually encourage consumers to waste less, which means they might buy less, which will impact on retailer profitability? What they generally don't look at is that if we actually organized operations more effectively, we would actually have, for food, less waste in our own operations as well as in the home. Because they don't actually calculate the cost of waste on their operations, they're generally not as proactive in looking to reduce waste as they otherwise would be—

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

If I understand—

[Martin Gooch]

—and that goes even in the U.K.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

You were saying that most waste occurs at the consumer level, if I understood what Ruth Ellen Brosseau said. A very high percentage occurs at the consumer level, not at the distributor level.

[Martin Gooch]

It does occur at the consumer level, but part of the reason so much food waste occurs at the consumer level is the way the industry operates, which has led to changes, for instance, in how Tesco operates. It does not do as many of what you now know as the BOGOF, buy one, get one free. It's buy one, get one later, because Tesco has realized—and, of course, they're one of the world's largest retailers—that getting consumers to buy a lot of food in bulk actually exacerbates the food waste issue at home.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lemieux.

Now we'll go to Mr. Eyking, for five minutes, please.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you for coming today to be our witness.

My parents were brought up in Europe during the war and they also had the Depression, so they always instilled in us that we weren't wasting any food, with us being farmers. But sometimes when you have societies that are well off compared to others you see this waste, and I guess there are many reasons why we have waste. You alluded to some of them even in the grocery supply chain, when they have these loss leaders and the large proportions and sizes.

Everybody has a bit of responsibility here, from the farmer all the way to the children sitting around the table, to eliminate some of the waste.

It's hard to regulate the food industry, especially at the retail level, to change their sizes. Maybe in packaging it would be good to try to entice these companies to have smaller packages. A lot of families are smaller, and there are seniors and just individuals in the household. I think that is a market-driven process, and packaging, of course, is important.

But how can we do more education on the consumer side? We often talk in the produce industry of the supply chain, the cold chain we call it, where you maintain the right temperature all the way through but then all of a sudden a consumer gets the groceries in a plastic bag and they are sitting in a warm car and then the fridge is not working right in the summer. All of sudden, there is a big gap. I think a promotion, starting in the schools and all the way through, about the waste of food...but how do we do that?

Are there any other countries you know of that promote that at the consumer level, at the household level? Even with transporting the groceries from the retailer right to the home, there is a loss right there. Are there any other countries doing programs to promote that? What could we be doing in this country?

[Martin Gooch]

It's a good question. We do quite a bit of consumer research. We do quite a bit of work with the entire value chain, from production inputs at the farm level, through to retail and food service. As part of that, we do quite a bit of consumer research. For instance, we had a peach study four years ago now, in conjunction with Loblaw, and we asked consumers how they kept their peaches at home. Anecdotally, we'd estimate 60% of the consumers turned around, almost without hesitation, and asked, “Well, how should we store these peaches at home?” Consumers are often their own worst enemy in keeping products. So I fully agree that consumer education piece is voluntary, but it has to be an informed education versus trying to make people feel guilty.

In the U.K., WRAP has done quite a bit of that. It's also fed into encouraging consumers to eat healthy. It's often the same countries. Australia educates consumers quite hard with their Love Food Hate Waste initiative, which is actually stolen—stolen, I say humorously—from the U.K. program, because they have the same name. You have celebrities who are encouraging changes in consumers. A good way is to actually use celebrities, people that consumers look up to. You don't want the CEO of a supermarket telling someone, “You need to do this but also buy our products”. What you need is someone the consumers connect with to say, “A typical family wastes this amount of product. These are the reasons you waste it. Here is a simple way to extend the shelf life, extend the life of the product in your fridge, or wherever you store it”.

Quite a successful initiative that steadily you see in Canada is Green Seal packaging. Green Seal packaging is fairly simple in most circumstances and can go a long way in reducing food waste in the household.

Another solution is having more direct instructions on packaging of how to handle foods. One of the successful processors that's helped to reduce food waste in the home is Warburtons, a baker. One thing that consumers don’t like to do is waste quite a bit of the life of bread, which of course turns into a science experiment very quickly if you don't keep it in the right way. Warburtons championed or actually led the development of a short loaf. It's a full-sized sliced loaf. You get the full slice out of every loaf, but it's about half the length. That alone has led to reductions of food waste in the home.

You see, it's hard to change consumer attitudes and behaviours. It's a long-time project, a long-time opportunity, but doing things in an incremental way plays into how consumers naturally behave in the home.

The other issue you raised was schools. We have—

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

We're well over time.

[Martin Gooch]

—largely lost.... Okay, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Okay, thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Eyking.

Mr. Dreeshen, you have five minutes, please.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

It's nice to hear from you, Dr. Gooch.

I'll perhaps start back with the schools, because, of course, the training that one has in food safety.... I remember from home ec classes that you would understand that if you cooked what you had, you would not have to worry about E. coli and all these other issues that occur. Of course, probably more E. coli comes from vegetables and so on than even in the meats. Yet, when you get the media hype on these things, everybody's starting to throw everything out and they don't recognize how the two things are related.

The concept about feeling guilty, as you mentioned earlier, certainly affects the way the consumer is going to deal with the products they have in their home as they hear all these stories that sometimes get expanded upon.

So the school, the training, I think, is extremely important, and for people to recognize the different things that can occur.

In your organization, you talk about working with food waste reduction, traceability, those types of programs. Could you tie it into two different specific aspects? The first one is farmers' markets and how they address this particular issue, and perhaps some ideas that people could present to them—if you don't feel they're addressing them at this point. The second one is the waste in transit. As we move different products from Canada to other places in the world, has there been a study on the kind of waste we see there? Of course, when we bring product in from other countries, how much waste is one anticipating to come through the borders and ports?

[Martin Gooch]

Those are two great scenarios.

I'm not an expert on farmers’ markets. They operate...and most consumers will actually go to a farmers' market for quite different reasons than they'll go to a retail store. They're two very different animals, by large part. The key driver behind someone going to a farmers’ market is primarily a bad experience with shopping as well as with the food afterwards. The markets make up a fairly small percentage of their overall food purchase.

In terms of what could happen in terms of reducing the waste at farmers’ markets, I think it comes back to the same initiatives and opportunities as in the wider industry—how the food is handled, how it's packaged, how it's presented, and how much is presented, packaged, and distributed. I think the same basic principles apply.

In terms of traceability, we're actually, at the moment, in the midst of a seafood traceability study, an international study. One of the purposes of the project is to identify where waste occurs along the value chain, whether it be aquaculture or wild-caught, and where traceability can help reduce waste along the chain. There's new technology coming into play in terms of giving businesses the opportunity to manage temperature and other parameters along the chain. It's an evolving area that will become increasingly an opportunity.