Two years in, Our Food Future hits key targets and broadens scope
Guelph, Ont., January 27, 2022 – On February 7, the Smart Cities Office will provide Guelph City Council with an update on how Guelph-Wellington’s Our Food Future program is exceeding its goals as it builds a local circular food economy, expanding with new funding, and attracting attention as the worldwide circular economy movement gains momentum.
Our Food Future launched in 2020 supported by $10 million from Infrastructure Canada’s Smart Cities Challenge, a national competition that declared Guelph-Wellington a winner in May 2019. The proposal was an ambitious undertaking to reimagine how our community produces, distributes, sells, and consumes food.
The initiative is currently overseeing more than 60 active projects. Notable achievements at the two-year mark of this work include:
Supporting economic and social recovery efforts during COVID-19 through Grow Back Better, an initiative which provided grants, interest-free loans and mentoring for food sector businesses, invested in emergency food delivery exceeding 77,000 meals, and helped 740 families learn about growing food at home
Prevented 1,769 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by diverting 6,479 tonnes of food waste from landfill
These activities are making food more accessible, giving families options in their neighbourhoods that they can afford, and allowing for businesses to contribute to the circular economy rather than landfill.
They are also positioning Guelph-Wellington as a circular economy innovation hub and attracting more funding. Since announcing the initial $10 million prize, the project has secured an additional $14.2 million to support the work of City, County, and community collaborators.
This includes nearly $5 million from the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario) in April 2021 to launch the Circular Opportunity Innovation Launchpad (COIL). COIL is a business acceleration platform that pioneers new, sustainable approaches aimed at creating, proving, and scaling transformative solutions across the food and environment sectors in southern Ontario. More than 40 businesses or collaborations are already working with COIL in its first phase.
Since Our Food Future launched, adopting more circular practices and changing our food systems has emerged as a critical global movement. In August 2020, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a landmark report warning that the world cannot avert a climate crisis unless we rapidly transform our food systems. In November 2021 the Glasgow Food and Climate Declaration formalized commitments from local and regional authorities from across the world to put into practice integrated food policies to tackle the climate emergency. Recently, City joined the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact, an international agreement on urban food policies signed by over 200 cities from all over the world.
Additional information about the project’s progress, upcoming initiatives and how community members can get involved is available at foodfuture.ca.
Quotes
“The innovations tested here, and lessons learned, are informing and inspiring change locally, and globally. Our example has been shared on world stages as nations commit to adopt circular principles that take us closer to our goals to tackle climate change and food insecurity. Project leaders and partners from Our Food Future have presented at more than 115 broadcasts and events, locally, nationally, and internationally, reaching an audience of more than one million people.”
Barbara Swartzentruber, Executive Director, Smart Cities Office
“We’ve had a lot of early success, completed many research studies, and analyzed a ton of data to help bring more precision to our understanding of critical areas we want to address: where businesses need to focus to support sustainability as well as profitability, where food waste hotspots occur across the entire food industry, the kinds of food we’re throwing away at home that can be saved, the barriers to people in our community accessing nutritious foods, and more. With all we have learned, we will be able to share and engage with our community and industry stakeholders to define the most effective interventions to create significant and permanent change.”
Jana Burns, Director of Museum, Archives and Economic Development with Wellington County
“Our Food Future is powering, building, and sustaining our future. These efforts are making a permanent contribution to address critical social issues and support a community where everyone has a chance to thrive. I couldn’t be happier with the progress and the impact we’ve seen to date in the community.”
Scott Stewart, Chief Administrative Officer, City of Guelph
About Our Food Future
Inspired by the planet’s natural cycles, a circular food economy reimagines and regenerates the systems that feed us, eliminating waste, sharing economic prosperity, and nourishing our communities. In Guelph-Wellington, we are working to build Canada’s first tech-enabled circular food economy that will increase access to affordable nutritious food, create new circular economy businesses and collaborations, increase circular economic benefit by unlocking the value of waste, and enable the systems change required for a circular regional food system through collective knowledge and action.
Our Food Future demonstrates one of the ways the City of Guelph and County of Wellington are contributing to a sustainable, creative and smart local economy that is connected to regional and global markets and supports shared prosperity for everyone.
Barbara Swartzentruber, Executive Director Smart Cities Office, Office of the Chief Administrative Officer City of Guelph 519-822-1260 extension 3066 [email protected]
Jana Burns Museum, Archives and Economic Development County of Wellington 519-846-0916 extension 5222 [email protected]
TORONTO – Strength in the base metal and technology sectors helped Canada’s main stock index gain almost 100 points on Friday, while U.S. stock markets also climbed higher.
The S&P/TSX composite index closed up 93.51 points at 23,568.65.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was up 297.01 points at 41,393.78. The S&P 500 index was up 30.26 points at 5,626.02, while the Nasdaq composite was up 114.30 points at 17,683.98.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.61 cents US compared with 73.58 cents US on Thursday.
The October crude oil contract was down 32 cents at US$68.65 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was down five cents at US$2.31 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$30.10 at US$2,610.70 an ounce and the December copper contract was up four cents US$4.24 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says wholesale sales, excluding petroleum, petroleum products, and other hydrocarbons and excluding oilseed and grain, rose 0.4 per cent to $82.7 billion in July.
The increase came as sales in the miscellaneous subsector gained three per cent to reach $10.5 billion in July, helped by strength in the agriculture supplies industry group, which rose 9.2 per cent.
The food, beverage and tobacco subsector added 1.7 per cent to total $15 billion in July.
The personal and household goods subsector fell 2.5 per cent to $12.1 billion.
In volume terms, overall wholesale sales rose 0.5 per cent in July.
Statistics Canada started including oilseed and grain as well as the petroleum and petroleum products subsector as part of wholesale trade last year, but is excluding the data from monthly analysis until there is enough historical data.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada’s main stock index was up more than 150 points in late-morning trading, helped by strength in the base metal and energy sectors, while U.S. stock markets were mixed.
The S&P/TSX composite index was up 172.18 points at 23,383.35.
In New York, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 34.99 points at 40,826.72. The S&P 500 index was up 10.56 points at 5,564.69, while the Nasdaq composite was up 74.84 points at 17,470.37.
The Canadian dollar traded for 73.55 cents US compared with 73.59 cents US on Wednesday.
The October crude oil contract was up $2.00 at US$69.31 per barrel and the October natural gas contract was up five cents at US$2.32 per mmBTU.
The December gold contract was up US$40.00 at US$2,582.40 an ounce and the December copper contract was up six cents at US$4.20 a pound.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
