Our work
Our goals
The figures on this page measure the size of the problem, and each one names its source. Our goals are not numbers. They are the standards every chapter works to.
Food Banks Canada, HungerCount 2025
Visits counted
Canada grows a great deal of food, and a large share of it is never eaten, while many households cannot afford enough. The food exists. The distance between the field and the people who need it is the problem.
The
Neighbour’s Table
Source
Food Banks Canada, HungerCount 2025
Food Banks Canada, HungerCount 2025
Visits since 2019
Our work sits directly under UN Sustainable Development Goal 12.3, which commits the world to halving food waste and reducing food losses along production and supply chains by 2030. Asking farms about surplus produce, and handing every yes to a food bank, serves Goal 2 on hunger and Goal 13 on climate at the same time.
The
Neighbour’s Table
Source
Food Banks Canada, HungerCount 2025
Second Harvest and Value Chain Management International, 2024
Food wasted yearly
A great deal of good food never leaves the farm it was grown on. A contract falls through, a buyer’s specification changes, or the fruit is the wrong size for a supermarket shelf. It is edible, it is already grown, and it goes into landfill.
The
Neighbour’s Table
Source
Second Harvest and Value Chain Management International, 2024
Statistics Canada, Census of Agriculture 2021
Farms in Canada
We advocate for a food system that stops treating edible food as waste, and chapters ask farms about it.
The
Neighbour’s Table
Source
Statistics Canada, Census of Agriculture 2021
Environment and Climate Change Canada
Fruit and vegetables lost
13%
An estimated 13% of the fruits and vegetables grown in Canada go unharvested or are discarded after harvest.
These are goals, and none of them is a number. Every chapter approved in writing by its principal. Every farm asked one question, with one follow-up at most. Every yes handed to an organization that collects with its own vehicle, and every outcome recorded. We publish what we are aiming at so that it can be held against us.
The
Neighbour’s Table
Source
Environment and Climate Change Canada
PROOF, University of Toronto, 2026
Food insecurity
24.0%
24.0% of people in Canada lived in a food-insecure household in 2025, about 9.8 million people.
UN Sustainable Development Goal 2 commits the world to ending hunger and ensuring access by all people to safe, nutritious and sufficient food all year round by 2030. That is the second goal we work to.
The
Neighbour’s Table
Source
PROOF, University of Toronto, 2026
What we are working toward
Read the three goals
What we are working toward
Three goals run our year. None of them is a number, because no figures about our own work exist yet.
- Every chapter approved in writing by its principal, with a Teacher Advisor copied on every outside message.
- Every farm on a chapter’s list asked one question, sent one follow-up at most, and never written to again after STOP.
- Every yes handed to an organization that collects with its own vehicle, and every outcome recorded.
See the goals
