Food Recovery and Food Security
Helping people, reducing waste and building a more resilient local food system.
Access to healthy food is essential to a strong community. At the same time, usable food is discarded while families, seniors and individuals face rising grocery costs.
Food recovery is both a social and environmental issue. It supports affordability, reduces waste and greenhouse-gas emissions, and makes better use of resources already available in our community.
What City Council can do
- Bring food recovery organizations, grocery businesses, restaurants, institutions, charities and volunteers together to identify practical opportunities.
- Review how City facilities and community spaces can support appropriate food-security, food-literacy and community-kitchen programs.
- Consider surplus-food recovery and waste reduction in City events, sustainability planning and waste-diversion initiatives.
- Support community-grant partnerships that improve access to nutritious food and build residents’ food skills.
- Identify administrative barriers that make it harder for businesses and organizations to donate or recover usable food.
- Encourage clear goals and reporting so residents can see how partnerships reduce waste and help people.
Why this matters
A healthier community is one where people have access to nutritious food, community organizations have the support they need and usable resources are not unnecessarily sent to landfills.
By supporting practical, community-driven solutions, Coquitlam can improve quality of life, strengthen local partnerships and reduce its environmental footprint.