Dumped fruit ended up in N.B. landfill because donating would have been too risky, group says
Photos taken by customer of waste treatment centre near Moncton show boxes of discarded tomatoes, citrus fruit
Bunches of bright red tomatoes are pictured piled in boxes in a landfill, but the group that oversees the distribution of food to food banks says it isn't what it looks like.
The juicy-looking tomatoes are alongside bright green and yellow citrus fruits, shown in photos sent to Radio-Canada by a customer of the Eco360 waste treatment centre in Berry Mills, just outside of Moncton.
The food was dumped by Food Depot Alimentaire. General manager Stéphane Sirois said the issue can be linked to a broken food chain and the fact that the food was frozen and thawed and frozen again.
"We get items that were either rejected … or close to expiring or damaged," he told Information Morning Moncton.
"And then we sort through it and we have to determine what goes back into our distribution, what goes to pig farmers for feed and what goes, unfortunately, into the landfill."
When asked how the fruit in the photos was determined to be inedible, Sirois said, "the products that ended up in the landfill were frozen and thawed and frozen a few times."
He said the products had already been rejected by a grocery chain, so even though they appear to be edible, it was determined that there was too much risk to send them to food banks.
The landfill is the last resort, he said, but Sirois couldn't say approximately how much food the depot sends to the landfill.
"We always err on the cautious side."
It's an issue that Greener Village, a Fredericton non-profit group that operates a food bank, is planning to tackle.
It plans to construct a perishable-food rescue centre to extend shelf life by processing these foods into freezer-stable or shelf-stable items.
Sirois said the rescue centre will be the first of its kind in Atlantic Canada, which is exciting for his organization, as it will mean some items won't need to be sent to the landfill.
"If we get a full transport truck of peppers, for example, and, you know, there's only so many peppers a family will eat at one time," he said.
"Now we will have a place to send those products, if they're still good, and they will process them … to extend shelf life.
"It can be vacuum-sealed, frozen, canned, and then they'll go back into our supply distribution."
With files from Information Morning Moncton, Radio-Canada