THE WORK

Chef Martin is A Better Life Foundation’s Food Recovery Coordinator.

Each day, his job is as creative as it is impactful. Heading the Waste Not Want Not program, he maximizes the use of unsellable, yet perfectly edible food items recovered from a roster of local grocery stores. He works to weigh, catalog, strategize, then execute hot and cold recipes that use up ingredients otherwise destined for the landfill. Martin’s fine dining Chef chops come to light in this environment and so does his passion under pressure as he re-purposes a wide-ranging pantry of items on a daily basis.

Each day, his job is as creative as it is impactful. Heading the Waste Not Want Not program, he maximizes the use of unsellable, yet perfectly edible food items recovered from a roster of local grocery stores. He works to weigh, catalog, strategize, then execute hot and cold recipes that use up ingredients otherwise destined for the landfill. Martin’s fine dining Chef chops come to light in this environment and so does his passion under pressure as he re-purposes a wide-ranging pantry of items on a daily basis.

Following training at the Northwest Culinary Academy of Canada, Martin’s talent, drive and dedication to the craft quickly levelled up his role within Vancouver’s fine dining kitchens. Besides the technical dishes, sought after menus, and exciting opportunities, a whirlwind of long hours, late nights and the telltale signs of burnout began to define Chef Martin’s career. Yet as the onset of Covid-19 forced widespread industry closures, Martin found himself among the storm of mass layoffs. He was forced to take pause and found himself rethinking his role in the industry.

With the world in a state of emergency and food insecure folks experiencing symptoms of poverty and houselessness being disproportionately harmed by the pandemic, Martin experienced a circuit breaker moment. He had the skills to help and soon found A Better Life Foundation.

Friday’s are still the best

Chef Martin takes each Friday to personally test himself by making as many meals as possible without sacrificing quality for quantity. This may sound like a pretty regular mission objective, but this specific challenge is to use up all of every wide ranging surplus and diverted ingredients saved during the week in a hot and cold recipe. These dishes are then packaged up in loaded-to-the-brim portions and delivered to our @freeofviolence partners around the DTES.

During the month of July 2021, Martin’s Friday meals included sweet coconut chicken and teriyaki vegetables on rice, tomato salad with falafel crumb and buttermilk dressing, broccoli and cheddar soup with crispy kale to finish, cheddar pepper mayo coleslaw, pesto beef and vegetable stew, chicken fried rice, chilled Korean-style cucumber salad… the list is delicious!⁠
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But Chef doesn’t just make meals on Fridays. The Waste Not, Want Not food recovery program runs 5 days a week and throughout July, the impact was as impressive as Chef’s creative recipes.

Check it out:⁠

🥘 1,900 meals made from re-purposed ingredients ⁠
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🌎 1,140kg of waste diverted from the landfill⁠
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💨 2,166kg of C02 saved from entering the atmosphere⁠