As Canada’s top food rescue partner with Second Harvest, Empire donated ~30 million pounds of surplus food to charities
Nearly half of the food produced in Canada goes to waste—enough to feed more than 17 million people per year. Tackling surplus food is an important way to ensure more people get the meals they need to live healthy lives while also reducing environmental and social impacts.
Fiscal 2025 Performance Highlights
45% reduction in food waste in our stores since 2016
13.9 million+ kilograms of surplus food donated to local charities from our stores and warehouses through our partnership with Second Harvest.
Our Approach
We are committed to reducing food waste in our operations by 50% by 2025, measuring and reporting on our progress using the globally recognized Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard. To reach this target, we work with like minded partners to reduce food waste in our stores and supply chain, ensure surplus food makes its way to the tables of families who are in need and track the incredible food rescue and donation programs already in place at our stores across the country.
Our food waste reduction strategy has three areas of focus:


Preventing Food Loss and Waste
We build awareness, cultivate new behaviours and provide tools and systems that empower teammates and customers to reduce food waste. We partner with organizations that match surplus foods from donors with organizations in need, diverting even more food from landfills.
We have implemented a multi-tiered food-waste prevention program that store managers execute in our stores daily.
Redistributing Surplus Food—National Food Rescue Program
In partnership with Second Harvest, Canada’s largest food rescue organization, we have deployed the Second Harvest Food Rescue App in our stores in all provinces except Quebec to help people access fresh, healthy food from non-profits while also reducing surplus food waste in our network. The food rescue program is integrated into all our retail support centres, Voilà customer fulfillment centres and Needs Convenience and fuel sites.
Watch this video to discover how to rescue some of the most commonly wasted foods.
Our national food rescue program makes it easier for stores to donate surplus, perishable food such as produce, dairy and meat—foods that are difficult for local charitable partners to acquire. As these specific foods also have the highest environmental impact, it’s even more important to divert them from landfills.




In addition to our partnership with Second Harvest, more than 180 stores in Quebec take part in the programme de récupération en supermarchés (PRS) to reduce food waste. In 2025, we donated more than two million kilograms of food to local organizations through this program.
Save More, Waste Less With FoodHero
To support our goal to reduce food waste, we have launched the FoodHero program in stores across Canada. FoodHero, a third-party mobile app, helps food retailers sell near-end-of-life products by connecting them with consumers who can purchase these items at special prices. FoodHero is available in over 800 participating Sobeys, Safeway, Thrifty Foods, IGA West and Foodland stores in English Canada and at participating IGA, IGA Extra, Tradition, Bonichoix and Rachelle Béry stores in Quebec.
Raising Awareness With Our Customers to Rescue Food at Home
We also continue to build awareness with our customers through our food rescue campaigns about how to reduce food waste at home. By encouraging customers to adopt the fourth “R” (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Rescue) through our campaign content, we continue to provide tips for food rescue at home, like how to turn compost-bound leftovers into cozy meals, or swapping in common ingredients to reduce food waste.
Watch this video to learn tips on rescuing food at home.
Our teams in Quebec and New Brunswick partnered with the Fonds Éco IGA to host a series of educational workshops for customers, providing them with tips and resources that helped over 14,000 customers to reduce their food waste.
Expanding Our Food Waste Strategy
We have made important progress and ensured that significant volumes of food reach families in need instead of landfills. We are extremely proud to have achieved a 45% reduction in food waste in fiscal 2025, although we are unlikely to reach our previously set target of 50% by the end of this calendar year. Moving forward, our commitment to food rescue and helping people get the meals they need to live healthy lives will remain a top priority and we will continue to report on our performance annually. In addition, we will be amplifying our efforts to divert and repurpose surplus food not suitable for human consumption for animal feed, biobased materials and biochemical processing, as well as expanding our organic composting program. The objective of our amplified and multi-faceted approach will be to reduce and divert even more food waste and create additional sustainable partnerships with communities and stakeholders, while benefiting local economies.


Highlights
Canada’s Top Food Rescue Partner With Second Harvest
For a third consecutive year, Sobeys was recognized as Second Harvest’s Partner of the Year. In 2024, we donated approximately 30 million meals to food charities through our food rescue program. Second Harvest CEO Lori Nikkel said our work, along with that of other Second Harvest partners, “ensures that good food nourishes people instead of going to waste, strengthening communities and protecting our planet.
Food Waste Apps Help Customers Save
Our partnership with the FoodHero mobile app enables stores to divert surplus food by offering it at discounted prices. The app makes it easy for customers to save up to 60% on proteins, baked goods, produce and more. FoodHero is now available in more than 850 participating stores across Canada, including Quebec. FoodHero complements existing in-store markdown programs across the country, helping to bring perfectly safe, delicious food that is nearing expiry to people’s homes instead of landfills. This year we also offered a small pilot on the FoodHero app that offers produce boxes filled with a variety of fruits and vegetables, available at select IGA stores in Quebec. We aim to expand the program in the coming months.
Since 2022, Longo’s has partnered with Too Good To Go, an online marketplace for surplus food. All Longo’s stores use the app to save food from waste. Since the partnership began, over 134,000 meals have been saved and into the hands of customers.


Imperfect Produce at Low Cost
Fruitful Bargain is a program that recovers imperfect produce and highlights how safe, nutritious and delicious these products are for customers. Our stores follow strict guidelines, offering value to customers with discounts as much as 50%. In fiscal 2025, we have recovered over 1.1 million units that would otherwise have ended up in landfill.


Champions
‘Waste not, want not’ is an expression I’ve heard my whole life, and it holds true both at home and at work. The launch of FoodHero is that expression in action. Our consumers, me included, are grateful for the opportunity in a collective mission to reduce waste and provide quality food to families on a budget, which can lead to better and brighter futures for all.”
Bernita Van Schothorst, Assistant Store Manager, Sobeys Inc.


Learn More
Our work to reduce food waste connects with our focus on ethical and sustainable sourcing, building stronger communities and reducing plastics.
As a family nurturing families, we want to ensure Canadians are taken care of today, tomorrow, and in the future. By doing OurPartTM for the environment, we hope to inspire our customers to do theirs. Every step we take together—big or small—can make a difference.
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