Kerby Centre bread market booming

There’s nothing better than a freshly baked loaf of bread.

Crisp and fluffy, straight out of the oven, they are perfectly paired with a variety of condiments. This author loves a nice blackberry jam preserve with a generous slab of butter.

Kerby Centre has partnered with Cobs Bread to help pass on the joy of bread to older adults in the community along with helping prevent food waste.

Good, fresh loaves, buns and baguettes are now available every Friday morning inside the Kerby Centre to be picked up. So far, 60 to 80 seniors have attended weekly, and the popularity of the event has the centre looking to add additional days to the program.

“It feels amazing to be able to facilitate the process of rescuing food and providing it to older adults in the community,” said Nora Rudenko, the newly hired Community Coordinator for Kerby Centre. Part of Rudenko’s role and passion will be working on food rescue programs, which have a two-pronged approach of helping provide food security while also reducing waste.

“We’re also looking to promote awareness of food rescue and what people can do in their own communities and kitchens to prevent waste,” Rudenko said.

Food waste is an important issue within Canada. Canadian households throw away $1,766 worth of food annually — not to mention edible food that goes unused in restaurants, grocery stores or produce markets.

Food rescue programs aim to assist through a variety of processes, whether it’s facilitating passing only delicious, fresh and edible food to those who can make use of it — like at the new Kerby bread market — or through composting or industrial use of inedible food waste.

For example, inedible food waste band be used through a process called “anaerobic digestion” to produce a biological methane, which is then used to generate electricity.

Another process, known as hydrothermal liquefaction, converts food waste into an oil that can then be refined into fuel. One of the largest hydrothermal liquefaction plants in Canada actually resides in Lethbridge.

Through these, and other simpler methods like the Kerby bread market, the concept of food rescue is being used to better promote sustainable living across Canada and Alberta.

“In the future, we hope to be able to do more outreach events in the community to promote awareness,” Rudenko said.