In 2019, a petition was signed demanding an end to food waste. The City of Montreal wants to ban large grocery stores from throwing organic waste into the trash but to collaborate with organizations to reduce waste « at the source ».
One of these non-profits raising awareness concerning food waste is La Transformerie. In 2017, Chef Guillaume Cantin, from the TV show Les 400 coups, was challenged by his friend and co-founder Thibault Renouf to cook a gastronomic dinner from grocery stores’ food wastes. Since then, the chef elaborated six various recipes of spreads, all made from supermarkets’ leftovers. Joined by Marie Gaucher and Bobby Grégoire, they created La Transformerie and collaborate with local markets from the Rosemont-Petite Patrie neighborhood such as IGA. They get their spreads’ main ingredients (fruits) from the markets unsold goods, and give back the finished product to the markets so they can be put back into the food chain among our regular spreads.
Even though the number of partners they have is growing slowly and the impact is still limited, the amount of waste as well as its quality has amazed the 4 co-initiators so far.
Until the end of 2019, La Transformerie has collected 13 636 kilograms of unsold goods, they gave 9 500 kilograms of food to other non-profits giving to people in need and 2 712 kilograms of fruits have been transformed into spreads.
