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Loop Resources: Stemming the waste of grocery store food

Every day, hundreds of farmers descend on grocery stores across Canada to save thousands of pounds of expired groceries from ending up in garbage dumps and landfills, taking what can't be sold and using it to feed their livestock and enrich their garden soil.

Instead of being wasted, farms are able to use wilted lettuce, expired deli meats, sagging watermelons, close-to-expiring dairy, stale bread, coffee grounds and any other discarded product not fit for human consumption to save the earth and ease the burden of rising feed costs for livestock.

The program is based on a simple idea, 

“Food should be put to its highest and best use ... we handle 100 per cent of the in-store, organic waste.” according to Loop Resource's website, the organization that jump-started the program.

Loop Resources was started by a family in Dawson’s Creek and has expanded to over 60 stores in Western Canada alone, and worked with over 2,500 farms in 2022 to help complete the loop and end food waste.

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Season 6, Episode 7: Takeaways from the Second International Conference on Pig Livability

Video: Season 6, Episode 7: Takeaways from the Second International Conference on Pig Livability

This year’s conference fostered open, engaging conversations around current research in the swine industry, bringing together hundreds of attendees from 31 states and six countries. Two leaders who helped organize the event joined today’s episode: Dr. Joel DeRouchey, professor and swine extension specialist in the Department of Animal Sciences and Industry at Kansas State University, and Dr. Edison Magalhaes, assistant professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at Iowa State University. They share key takeaways from the conference, including the importance of integrating data when evaluating whole-herd livability, building a culture of care among employees and adopting new technologies. Above all, the discussion reinforces that this industry remains, at its core, a people business.