March is Member Month at EFAO! Every March, we offer a series of events to prospective members at free or discounted rates, to give folks a chance to experience membership without the commitment. Members who join EFAO or renew in March (regardless of when their membership expires) will be entered to win 3 books of their choice from New Society Publishers! Visit the EFAO membership page for more details.

Save money on feed and prevent grocery store “waste” from ending up in the landfill!

Loop Resource is a program that connects farmers with their local grocery store to pick up food that stores can’t sell in order to feed their animals. This organization started in 2018 in Dawson Creek, BC, by a farmer, Jaime White, who found that he was working a full-time job in order to feed his animals, but felt that there had to be a better way so that he could spend more time with his family. He got in touch with his local grocery store to see if they’d be willing to share their unsellable food with him, and Loop was born. Since then, they’ve grown to serve almost 4000 farms across Canada and over 350 stores, and have diverted over 191 MILLION pounds of food from the landfill!

Meet Jaime and learn more about how Loop works — and how you can get involved — at this FREE member month Q&A!

More about Loop

The team at Loop believes that food should always be put to its highest and best use, so wherever possible, the food goes to charities first (only what they need with no waste management burden) and then farms next to feed their animals. What farmers can’t use goes into their compost pile, and the loop continues.

Some typical items that farmers receive in pickups are produce like wilted lettuce, squished tomatoes, soft apples and bags of salad mixes. They also get dairy, like milk past its best-before date, deli items like fruit or sandwiches, meat and seafood for dogs and cats, and other grocery items.

Members can learn more about Loop Resource at loopresource.ca

About the speaker

Jaime White is New Projects Director at Loop Resource. Jaime was raised in central BC and currently lives on a farm near Dawson Creek, BC with his family. Loop was formed to divert unsold food from grocery stores away from the landfill towards charities and to networks of local farms that use it as animal feed. As one of the first farms participating in Loop when it began in 2017, and with his background in business, Jaime set up the waivers and insurance that grocery stores required. His continued involvement has helped Loop expand coast to coast in Canada.