Three weeks after launching a platform, Second Plate, linking surplus food to customers, the students won three Enactus Canada awards.
Working part time at a restaurant, Areeb Salsabil, a graduate student at Northeastern University in Toronto, often witnessed fresh but unsold food being thrown away at the end of the day.
“Every day, the food that was being thrown away could have served around 15 to 20 people,” says Salsabil, who is completing his master’s degree in analytics this spring.
His friends shared similar stories — seeing food wasted at restaurants and grocery stores simply because of approaching expiration dates.
So when Salsabil and his classmate Vaishal Jariwala decided to participate in Enactus — a global network of young leaders and a social entrepreneurship competition — they knew what project they wanted to pursue.
One in seven people in Toronto struggles with food insecurity. Salsabil and Jariwala decided to find a way to address this issue while simultaneously reducing food waste in the city.
They developed Second Plate, an online platform that connects users with restaurants willing to sell surplus food at a 20% to 50% discount.
“It is a bridge between restaurants with surplus food and people looking for an affordable meal,” says Salsabil, who is now Second Plate’s president.
They secured university funding as a student interest group and assembled a team of students who act as project managers, software developers and social media and marketing associates.
Partnering with two restaurants, they built a website and began distributing discount coupons to fellow Northeastern students in early February.
By joining Second Plate, restaurants can recover ingredient costs and attract new customers, says Jariwala, who serves as vice president of internal affairs.
“We are proposing that whatever [surplus] food we have should be accessible and cheaper for everyone,” he says. “The city moves one step closer to solving its food waste crisis.”
While Second Plate shares similarities with Too Good To Go, a business operating in Canada and the U.S., Jariwala points out a key difference.
Too Good To Go in Canada allows customers to reserve “surprise bags” filled with surplus food items from local restaurants, cafés and grocery stores.
With Second Plate, Jariwala says, customers know exactly what they are getting and avoid throwing away food because of food allergies.
Unlike its competitors, Second Plate doesn’t charge fees to restaurants or customers. Payments go straight to the restaurant and customers can order online or in person up to two hours before closing time.
In just three weeks before the Enactus competition, Second Plate distributed over 170 coupons to fellow Northeastern students in Toronto, leading to more than 150 claimed meals. The partner restaurants reported saving 75% of their surplus food from waste.
“We started the pilot program with just Northeastern students for now, and the reviews are really good,” Jariwala says. “Moving forward, we’ll be expanding to five locations by the end of the next month.”
The students have been also engaging with the city officials and local food banks to reach more people struggling with food insecurity.
In March, Northeastern’s Toronto Enactus team showcased Second Plate in three categories at the Enactus Canada Central Regional Competition, competing alongside more than 30 university and college teams.
Despite being a new project, the team won their league in the Enactus Canada TD Entrepreneurship Challenge and earned second runner-up honors in both the Enactus Canada Alumni Innovation & Impact Challenge and the Canadian Tire Environmental Sustainability Challenge.
These wins earned them a spot in the Enactus National Competition in Calgary, Alberta, in May.
Deniz Toker, associate director of community and academic partnerships on Northeastern’s Toronto campus and the teams’ adviser, says he’s been blown away by their tenacity, resilience and passion despite limited resources.
“They are motivated to take initiatives and they don’t shy away from reaching out to me or other stakeholders in the city,” he says. “This is a one-of-a-kind group.”