Tom Truchan remembers a time not long ago when perishable food that didn’t sell was tossed in garbage bins at grocery stores, so he welcomes programs like working to reduce unnecessary food waste. “Years ago stores would get maybe once-a-week pickup from a food bank,” said Truchan, director of food safety with . “So that’d be dry grocery products like canned beans and pastas, that stuff would go, and then bakery, some bread, because bread will last a few days.

But anything that was highly perishable was all just going to the landfill.” Today, the company’s grocery stores are diverting an estimated 90 per cent of edible food to hungry people in Metro Vancouver, including milk, cheese, meat, produce, bread, unsold sandwiches, pre-made pizzas and pretty much everything else found on grocery store shelves. In Surrey, Georgia Main’s two Fresh St.

Market stores are part of the FoodMesh program, now eight years running. “We’re a Vancouver-based company,” said Jessica Regan, CEO and co-founder of FoodMesh, “and our job is to be the support infrastructure to connect food surplus with a recipient network of charities, farmers and alternative outlets for good, beautiful food that’s just unfortunately not sell-able but still rescue-able.” Some of that food is past the “best before” date printed on the label, and that’s OK.

“On most products, a best-before date means that’s when it’s past its peak freshness,” Truchan clarified, “so after the bes.