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Cooling the Prairies: Deploying a ‘Legal Shield’ Fridge Network to Divert 2 Million Tonnes of Methane-Producing Food Waste into Student Ecosystems.

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Brief Problem Introduction: Nearly 46.5% of food in Canada never reaches a plate, yet thousands of students skip meals to pay tuition. Universities across Canada are facing a dual crisis:

• Rising student food insecurity disproportionately affecting international, Indigenous, racialised, and low-income students
• Large volumes of edible food surplus from restaurants, caterers, and suppliers that never reach students due to liability fears, lack of coordination, and administrative barriers

Our Solution: We aim to bridge the gap between Canada’s $58B food waste paradox and the acute hunger of our student population. By creating a logistical and legal "bridge" for 127,000 food businesses, we empower universities to move from temporary charity to permanent food sovereignty. The gap is not food availability — it is coordination, trust, and implementation capacity. </aside>

[https://drive.google.com/file/d/12QiZRAqJBGBm0W1XoitLT04N6XoELrUX/view?usp=share_link](https://drive.google.com/file/d/12QiZRAqJBGBm0W1XoitLT04N6XoELrUX/view?usp=share_link)

Food exists. The system to share it doesn’t — yet.

Field Research: Our University Case Studies & Stakeholder Interviews

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The Bridging Report: Closing the Gap Between Surplus & Need

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The 12-Month Action Plan: From Shield to Sovereignty

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Meeting the Need: Bridging the Gap at our Prairie Pilot Sites

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We selected the University of Saskatchewan (13-14% Indigenous students, 64% Indigenous food insecurity) and University of Manitoba (serving Winnipeg's extreme urban poverty where food banks support 100K+ monthly) to pilot the model in contrasting Prairie contexts to demonstrate its potential to address distribution gaps within a region known for its agricultural production.

The Prairies are often called "Canada’s Breadbasket" because of their massive agricultural output. There is a deep irony in the fact that the region producing the world’s food also sees some of the highest rates of student hunger.

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At the University of Saskatchewan, 39.5% of students reported experiencing food insecurity, including marginal, moderate, and severe levels (Olauson et al., 2018). Similarly, research at the University of Manitoba found that 35.3% of students were food insecure, with nearly one in eight experiencing severe food insecurity (Entz et al., 2017).

Our model provides an indoor, year-round infrastructure of care that survives the Prairie climate while connecting local agricultural surplus to the students who need it most.

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