Put your brilliant idea on paper and submit it to the second round of the Food Waste Reduction Challenge launched November 2020 through Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada (AAFC).
Its first round of the Challenge received 343 applications. It says another intake round will happen in spring 2021.
Food waste gained a profile over the past couple of years due to statistics around food insecure Canadians and green house gas impacts of food in landfills. The numbers point to a system that could definitely stand improvement. It is, of course, a global problem with a global initiative behind it.
In its call for applications, AAFC points to over 50% of food in Canada wasted each year and one in seven Canadians food insecure. Canada also ranks high among nations of food wasters. The challenge offers large sums of money to people or businesses that can come up with innovative solutions to reduce these numbers.
This first round focuses on Challenge Streams A and B to support solutions ready for commercialization and provide an innovative way of doing business (i.e. a new business model) to prevent or divert food waste across any or multiple segments of the food supply chain. These streams target solutions in early commercialization phase to accelerate growth and expansion in the Canadian market. Successful solutions will have a high impact in reducing the volume of food waste in absolute (total volume of food saved) or relative terms (percentage of food saved).
Challenge Streams C and D will launch soon and focus on investments in technologies at the prototyping and testing phases to improve effectiveness and make them ready for the Canadian market within the next two years.