In just over a year of existence, Mealshare has provided more than 22,480 meals to the less fortunate in Victoria and more than 130,000 Canada-wide.
That’s just the start for a program initiated by a pair of University of Victoria commerce grads.
On Tuesday, Mealshare announced it signed another four Victoria restaurant partners — bringing to 18 the number of local businesses taking part and 148 nationwide — and gave notice the program has an eye on explosive expansion in the new year.
“We are now all the way to Halifax. It’s been amazing to see so much support,” said Derek Juno, Mealshare’s vice-president of business development. He said people in smaller communities, including the Cowichan Valley, call and ask the company to set up.
Mealshare, founded by UVic grad Andrew Hall and Jeremy Bryant last year, has established a network of partner restaurants who designate a few items on their menu as Mealshare offerings. For each $1 raised, 70 cents goes to provide food and 30 cents goes to raising awarenss about hunger and to run Mealshare. The idea is to buy one meal and give another meal away as diners choosing items labeled Mealshare will have paid for a meal at a local soup kitchen.
In Victoria, Mealshare meals benefit Our Place and Save the Children. Our Place serves more than 1,500 meals a day on a tight budget, and can make a meal for between $1.10 and $1.50.
Mealshare just added Victoria restaurant partners The Village (Estevan Village and Royal Oak), Foo Asia Street Food and The Clay Pigeon. Juno said getting restaurants to join is getting easier now that the service has been operating for more than a year.
It also announced it had signed its first chain, Original Joe’s. “When we started, we had that shotgun strategy of ‘we have this idea, we think it’s fantastic, who wants to try it?’ ” It was tough to pitch to general managers and owners of top quality restaurants, said Juno. “But once we had a few well-established restaurants, a lot of others started to listen to us.”
Juno said the next stage is to expand into Ontario and partner with other chains. A big focus will also be establishing Mealshare as a “trust mark” on restaurant menus. “We want to associate Mealshare as a trust mark the way Oceanwise is on menus for the environment. We want to be a socially conscious mark on menus,” he said.
