The FoodMesh team is united in our love for food and passion for helping organizations waste less, feed more and save money.
2024 Benefit Corporation Report
Throughout 2024, FoodMesh has continued our work to help organizations minimize the volume of their unsalable food ending up in waste streams, and maximize the impact that food can have on their local communities.
During the year, the organizations we work with hit the incredible milestone of 50 million KG of rescued since FoodMesh opened our doors in 2017.
The impact of our work in 2024 – by the numbers
13,677,593
Meals provided
8,764,236
Food rescued (KG)
22,696,254
CO2 emissions saved (KG)
56,007,808
Donated value ($)
“FoodMesh is our backbone. Without the donations we get through FoodMesh, we would not survive and be able to do what we’re doing for our community. I am so grateful.”
– Randel Erbacker, Salvation Army Vernon’s Community Program Coordinator
Impact on employees
- Maintained daily, weekly and monthly touchpoints with the team to check in with one another on their work and wellbeing
- Flexible work arrangement and location, for employees to choose the working hours that work best for them and their evolving life needs
- Provided employees with a training allowance and paid time to support their professional and personal development
- Maintained a monthly ‘Coffee Culture Club’ to create space for the team to come together and share ideas on different practices FoodMesh can adopt to help build a positive, inclusive and supportive work culture
- Hosted our fourth annual all-staff retreat for quality in-person team building, which included a dedicated 4D-i assessment of the team, with an external facilitator
- Provided all employees with access to an in-depth Indigenous Awareness training, and reflection time afterwards as a team
- Completed a robust performance review process for the entire team
- Maintained a social committee that included a summer party and a holiday party for the team to come together and enjoy informal social time and team building
- Provided each employee with an end-of-year bonus and all employees received an adjustment in compensation to reflect evolving roles and inflation.
- Continued our volunteer program, providing the team with two paid days per year to volunteer with organizations in our network
- Spent an afternoon volunteering as a team with one of our partner organization, Quest
Impact on customers
- Arranged for our clients to volunteer with their donation recipients, so they could see for themselves the impact their donations were having on the local community
- Helped to generate positive media coverage about our customers and their outstanding food recovery efforts
- Celebrated our customers’ key food recovery milestones on FoodMesh’s blog and social media channels
“Distributing the hampers to the clients was a highlight. Seeing the faces behind the numbers made the experience feel truly meaningful”
– Tom Truchan, Georgia Main Food Group
Impact on the environment
- Helped organization divert 8,764,236 KG of food away from waste streams in 2024 and 38,811,951 KG since FoodMesh began
- Helped avoid 22,696,254 KG of CO2 emissions from entering the atmosphere in 2024 and 100,706,012 KG since FoodMesh began
- When procuring equipment, such as office furniture or laptops, we maintain a ‘nothing new’ policy – opting for reused or refurbished items first and only buying items new when absolutely necessary
- We encourage remote working to reduce unnecessary emissions
- Our office is located near public transport hubs so that employees can commute to work by bus or train. A number of employees bike or walk to the office
- Our holiday party Secret Santa was using regifted, thrifted or homemade items only
“I’ve seen firsthand with my clients the difference this can make. Our guests don’t have to be hungry because of partners like Fresh St. Market, whose donations let us do the work we have to do.”
– Rachel Martin, Volunteer Coordinator at the Salvation Army Gateway of Hope in Langley
Impact on community
- We worked directly with 153 hunger relief organizations and 379 farmers in 2024, and 1,221 indirectly
- We celebrate and promote the great work our charity partners are doing through blog posts and social media coverage on an ongoing basis
- We have shared $580,000 in revenue with hunger-relief organizations in 2024, and $2,286,000 in total since FoodMesh began
- We have helped organizations rescue the equivalent of 13,677,593 meals in 2024, and 59,002,241 meals in total since FoodMesh began
- We sponsored three food service businesses in Metro Vancouver to win a comprehensive Food Waste Audit by BetterTable.ca, to provide them with the tools to prevent waste in their daily operations, for long-lasting impact. The impact of these audits have the potential to see 1.4 tonnes of food waste reduced per month – the equivalent of 2,500 meals.
- We sponsored a roundtable with leaders from the local hospitality industry, to share actionable strategies for cutting food waste in their kitchen. For the benefit of others in the industry, we summarised those tips and strategies on our blog.
- Our team volunteered 51 hours in 2024 to hunger-relief organizations we work with, helping them in their work to get food to people who need it.
Public benefits and disclosures
- FoodMesh is both a B Corp and a benefit corporation under British Columbia law.
- We measure our public benefit through the B Lab Impact Assessment which measures a company’s positive social impact on its stakeholders. We were certified in May 2021, and successfully recertified in May 2024.