Real Canadians: Combatting food insecurity one recovered restaurant meal at a time

Jean-François Archambault has never personally experienced food insecurity, but the Montreal pastry shop owner has been working for more than two decades to help Canadians who cannot afford or access enough nutritious food to meet their needs. In 2002, he founded La Tablée des Chefs, a non-profit organization primarily focused on food recovery in the hospitality sector. The inspiration for the organization began with a cooking class.

“My father was a lawyer for a chef’s organization and I grew up around chefs and cooks, so I was privileged,” explains Archambault. “I started thinking about food insecurity when I took a cooking class as part of hotel management studies in 1996. Students in the class prepared and cooked about 80 meal portions and then when class was done, we’d throw away half of the food that had been made. It seemed like such a senseless waste. Imagine what would happen if an architecture student built a wonderful bridge and then destroyed it once it was finished.”

Archambault worked in the hotel industry after graduating and held several positions at some of the top hotels in Montreal. Observing the food waste from banquets and hotel restaurants continued to bother him — especially when he knew there are people in Canada who struggle to get enough nutritious food to meet their needs.

When he talked to chefs and restaurant managers about redirecting unused food to people in need, they often expressed concerns about liability. What would happen if someone got food poisoning or claimed to have food poisoning? Would the restaurant be liable?

Other concerns included finding the time in a busy restaurant to organize the recovered food, figuring out how to store it so it would be safe and usable, and co-ordinating with a local community organization that could get the food to people who need it.

In Archambault’s search for a solution to food waste in the hospitality industry, he spoke to the minister of agriculture, representatives from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), leaders in the hospitality industry and leaders of large corporations before taking action. “My dad helped to organize the legal structure of La Tablée des Chefs as a not-for-profit organization,” he says. “We’ve made it as simple as possible for restaurants to participate, so kitchen staff can keep their primary focus on their customers. Restaurants freeze the food and label it with the ingredients and allergen information. We provide containers and find a local community-based organization to distribute the recovered food to people who need it.”

The program that began in Montreal has now grown to include locations right across Canada including restaurants as well as sports venues, convention centres and hotels. In 2005, in co-operation with the Montreal Canadiens, the program was implemented in the Bell Centre. During 42 season games, more than 100,000 meals that would have been discarded were recovered and sent to people in need.

There are several other programs that Archambault has started or championed in his efforts to improve food security in Canada. Solidarity Soups recovers vegetables from produce wholesalers and those vegatables are transformed into delicious soups by volunteer chefs. The soups are served for lunch in schools that are often in less privileged locations and all students and staff can enjoy them. This avoids stigmatism for students who need food assistance.

Cook up Your Future is a program aimed to support foster children who are approaching adulthood (ages 15-25) to help them learn how to prepare good food on a simple budget. There are culinary classes as well as culinary starter kits that contain simple kitchen tools to help youth survive and thrive on their own when they end foster care at the age of 18.

Teaching young people culinary autonomy is another way to prevent food insecurity. The Kitchen Brigades (Brigades Culinaires) program has chefs going into schools two hours per week for 24 weeks to teach different culinary skills. At the end of the year, schools participate in an iron chef competition. More than 300 schools in Quebec and 75 schools outside the province are participating in that program.

“The culinary community has been very supportive of these programs that educate youth and work to reduce food waste and food insecurity,” says Archambault. “We have recovered many tons of food and have fed thousands of people, but we could still do so much more.”

Jean-François Archambault’s dream is to build a movement that reduces food waste, educates vulnerable youth and works to end food insecurity in Canada.

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Debbie Olsen is an award-winning Métis writer and a national bestselling author.