In its first “impact report,” the Quebec-based company FoodHero claims to have helped divert 7 million pounds of food from waste in 2025, which is equivalent to approximately 12 million bowls of pasta.
In 2019, FoodHero launched an app in five Metro stores in Montreal that connects grocery stores and consumers to prevent food waste.
The concept is simple: using geolocation, the app tells users where, near their homes, they can buy products nearing their expiration dates at a lower cost.
The app allows grocery stores to sell products they likely wouldn’t otherwise sell and enables users to save between 25 per cent and 60 per cent.
Every year since its launch, the company has expanded its network of partner grocery stores, to the point where, in 2024, a partnership with Empire Company made it available at over 1,000 retail locations across Canada.
“2025 was the first full year we operated across Canada,” and that is why “we decided to publish our first impact report,” explained FoodHero President Renaud Leblanc in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“We helped divert 7 million pounds of food from the trash in 2025 across more than 1,100 grocery stores—that’s an average of about 3 to 4 tonnes of food per store. That’s still a substantial amount, and through this, households benefit because we sell that food at a discount,” said Leblanc.
“We’ve developed a system with grocery stores to remove food nearing its expiration date from the shelves” and “place it in the back of the store to freeze it.”
Then, “this food is scanned using the FoodHero app for retailers, and that’s when it appears on the app for consumers,” explained the company’s president.
“We’re talking about meat, fish, ready-to-eat meals, baked goods, dairy products, fruits, and vegetables. Most of the food is frozen, but there are also fresh products,” he noted.
In its impact report, FoodHero cites the organization Second Harvest, which estimates that the amount of edible food wasted each year in Canada could feed more than 17 million people.
“Food waste is one of the most striking paradoxes of our food system: even as prices rise and food insecurity increases, a significant amount of perfectly edible food is still thrown away,” Leblanc pointed out.
A report published in 2024 by Second Harvest highlights that 46.5 per cent of all food produced in Canada is wasted.
According to Second Harvest, “23 per cent of avoidable food waste” is caused by “best before” dates.
Many Canadians throw away perfectly edible food because they confuse “best before” with “expiration date.”
In most cases, however, these foods remain edible after that date.
“We’re preparing an awareness campaign to help people better understand these dates. It’s something we’ll be rolling out in the coming months,” said Renaud Leblanc.
When food is wasted, the FoodHero report emphasizes, “all the resources invested in its production, transportation, and storage are wasted as well.”
Food waste therefore has a significant environmental footprint.
FoodHero has developed, in collaboration with a consulting firm, an indicator called “CO2 saved.”
This metric allows app users to see the estimated greenhouse gas emissions avoided when surplus food is purchased rather than thrown away.
FoodHero estimates that the seven million pounds of food diverted from waste through its app in 2025 would have prevented 652 metric tons of CO2 equivalents, which is equivalent to 1,630 flights from Montreal to Vancouver.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
