Real Food Rescue

Background

For over a decade, the Hellmann's Real Food Movement has been championing food-related causes. This year, the campaign has focused on food waste. Four million Canadians go hungry each year.

However, Canada wastes enough food every minute to feed an entire stadium.

The Hellmann's Real Food Rescue was a new program intended to recover excess food after events at Scotiabank Arena, North America's third-busiest arena, and deliver it to local food banks. In its first year, the program should provide an astounding 50,000 meals to the needy people of Toronto, with plans to grow exponentially in the years to come.

Idea

The program was launched on August 25th by giving out free food to anyone at the Scotiabank Arena that day. At half-time, a video was played to spectators revealing that their delicious meals had come from food thrown out by grocery stores two days previously.

Results

Unknown

Our Thoughts

Food waste is a huge problem in so many different ways. It’s not just environmentally damaging it is morally offensive. 800 million people go hungry every day around the world. Even in prosperous Canada, 850,000 people turn to food banks each month for help. A third of those who get their food this way are children or teens. And yet Canada is the second most profligate country in the world in terms of food waste.

This idea from Hellmann’s does two good things. One, it gets food redistributed to feed those who need it but, two, and possibly more importantly, it is raising awareness of an issue most people seem to be only dimly aware of.

The truth is, waste from stores is not as big a problem as food waste in the home.

Canadians waste 873 lbs of food a year at a cost of nearly $1,500. Hellmann’s, Ogilvy, any ideas how to get people to use what they buy?