CREDIT: FOODFUND'S FACEBOOK PAGE
FoodFund reduces food waste by delivering produce right to customers' front doors.

In January of 2017, Divyansh Ojha and his cousin, Aditya Ojha, were driving by a grocery store when they noticed the store was throwing out a massive amount of tomatoes.

Then, a few blocks down the street, the pair saw an individual begging for food. This didn’t add up to them; they wondered how so much perfectly good food could be getting thrown out when there are so many people that are severely in need of food.

The pair started researching food waste in Canada and found that 31 million pounds of food are wasted every year in Canada. The outraged pair started brainstorming what could be done about this, and from this, FoodFund was born.

FoodFund is a local student-run organization founded by Divyansh that hand delivers produce to their customers’ front doors.

While there are a few organizations that deliver produce and groceries, FoodFund is unique in that it collects produce that would otherwise go to waste, whether because there is a surplus in a specific fruit or vegetable, or if the product is misshapen or miscoloured.

Customers can personally customize their boxes, which are anywhere from five to 22 pounds and can feed one to five people.

The team collects the produce from farmers and distributes them to their customers’ front doors for no delivery fee.

All of the produce is grown in Southwestern Ontario, with the exception of more exotic produce, such as lemons and oranges, in which the organization collects from Toronto.

“We got to know some farmers that sell their produce to these big retail stores and [the retail stores] are very strict on their standards,” Aditya said during a phone interview with Interrobang. Aditya is the operations lead for FoodFund.

The organization compensates the farmers as much as they can, however, when the company was first starting up many farmers allowed FoodFund to take the produce free of charge until the organization was on its feet and could pay the farmers back.

“They believed in us and we were glad to partner up with a few farmers to begin with. One of the farmers who used to give us tomatoes last year, gave us the tomatoes at almost 60 per cent discount by assuming that we will pay them back later,” Aditya said.

With an average of 300 deliveries a week, and an average box size of 10 pounds, Aditya estimates that FoodFund is able to save around 3000 pounds of produce each week. On top of this, FoodFund delivers an additional 2000 pounds of rescued produce per week to local restaurants and nursing homes, meaning that the organization saves about 5000 lbs of produce from going to waste each week.

Most of their cliental is students, people with disabilities, and those who cannot afford the high price of produce in the grocery store. As a student-run organization of six core members and seven to eight delivery drivers, the small organization excels in ensuring that their customers’ needs are first.

“The quality and the quantity of the fruits and vegetables is amazing and lasts me the entire week. I love that I don’t have to go all the way to the grocery store for my produce because it’s delivered right to my front door,” said Western University Student, Atharv Joshi. Joshi has been receiving boxes from FoodFund for a month.

All orders can be placed on the FoodFund website, where the organization has posted how-to videos to make the process easier. If the customer orders before Wednesday at midnight, they will receive their package that Saturday morning between 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.

The customer can personally customize their box to ensure they are only receiving produce that will be used. There is no contract or delivery fee and the customer is able to skip any weekly delivery, without getting charged for that week.

For more information on Food- Fund or to place an order, visit their website: www.foodfund.ca.