To the Rescue
Whether it was the pandemic push that forced some businesses online or the evolution of technology that’s finally hitting hospitality and agriculture after disrupting media, the hotel industry and taxi systems, local entrepreneurs are using technology to find new ways to deal with old problems.
Food Stash
Thinking about the amount of food wasted in the world is much like thinking about the universe’s size–nearly impossible to fathom. Canadians waste 35 million tons of food each year, making us some of the world’s worst food wasters.
Vancouver-based teacher David Schein felt compelled to do something about it, so he started a food rescue program called Food Stash, which delivers food boxes to people experiencing food insecurity.
Rescued food is food that did not sell due to overstocking, cancellation, or if the food is just not the right size or shape. Food Stash sources their rescued food from suppliers such as Stong’s Market, Whole Foods, Save On Foods, and more, diverting 60,000 pounds of food per month from the compost plant.
For a nominal fee, Food Stash offers weekly food boxes full of healthy perishable food such as vegetables and dairy to those low-income households.
It currently services 75 members and more than 18 community organizations, and they’ve launched a new sustainable delivery program. In an attempt to cut down on emissions, they’ve started the Pedal to Plate program, where they’ve teamed up with Shift Delivery Coop to deliver food using electric tricycles.
Food Stash Foundation
foodstash.ca | @foodstashfoundation
FromTo
Planning for another mild night in with a new show and delivery? Who isn’t these days, but next time you reach for a food delivery app, consider ordering with FromTo? When the pandemic swept through Vancouver, shutting down restaurants for dine-in, patrons responded by ordering takeout to support their favourite restaurants using big biz apps such as Uber Eats and Skip the Dishes. The trouble is that those apps were taking up to 30 per cent off the top of each order, making it difficult for businesses to turn a profit.
Brandon Grossutti, owner of PiDGiN restaurant in Gastown, knew all too well the squeeze other restaurateurs were feeling, so he developed FromTo, which offers the same service — often using the same drivers — but the difference is that FromTo takes no commission. Zero. It pays drivers $6.50 per delivery, and the only fee restaurants cover is the credit card processing fee. Why start a business with no plans to turn a profit? According to Grossutti, his only concern is support for the drivers and restaurants.
Another upside of the app is that without having to pay a fee, some of the more than 30 restaurateurs using FromTo have lowered their prices. Win-win.
FromTo
fromto.ca | @fromto
Farm at Hand
We have apps for photos, apps for games, apps to identify what’s wrong with your dying house plant, so why not an app for farmers? The Farm At Hand app aims to make farm management easier by tracking everything that happens on the farm, from planning crops to doing inventory.
Kim Keller, whose family owns a 12,000-acre farm in Saskatchewan, co-founded Farm At Hand after discovering that technology had not kept up with farming. She teamed up with software developer Himanshu Singh and moved to Vancouver to develop Farm At Hand, a program for monitoring grain bins. Keller and Singh stepped down from the project in 2016, and in 2019, in a surprise acquisition, TELUS took over Farm At Hand in the telecommunications company’s first foray into agriculture.
Now the app offers an array of features that allows farmers to track sales, break down production costs and monitor market trends. It also has a feature that traces crops from harvest to storage and final delivery in real-time.
Farm at Hand
210-807 Powell St., Vancouver B.C.
farmathand.com | info@farmathand.com
