As always, we have thank you’s to share. Since our last post, we’ve received all sorts of positive energy from all angles. But, we’d like to give thanks to a special little group of project supporters just South of us in West Richmond, BC. The preschool class of this year at Merry King Preschool, and their nurturing parents, made a donation to The Tiffin Project for 2013.

Here are The Tiffin Project headquarters in East Vancouver – which is no more than a small office in an old character house – we were floored! Emily Vera, a coordinator for the preschool, arranged the donation, as she’s been an avid supporter since the project’s first week. She’s a tweeter, a tiffin-toter, and she’s spoken at length with project founder Hunter Moyes about how important it is to teach kids to love food, and interact with it in an environmentally friendly way.

On that not, we at The Tiffin Project would like to thank the kids and parents of Mary King Preschool for their generous donation, and we wish them the best. Here is a lovely picture that they sent us. Thanks again guys! Have a great year!

Thanks so much!

Now, we’ll be back shortly, to introduce our new interns, and our new strategy for 2013! Stay tuned!

Can you believe it’s been almost half a year? At the end of this month, The Tiffin Project’s containers will have been active on the streets of Vancouver for their metropolitan pilot for 6 months. As the saying goes – time flies!

The project and I have been blessed this year with many new friends, wonderful supporters, mentoring social entrepreneurs, gritty cooks and Chefs, hard-working serving staff members, sleepless business owners and enthusiastic kids of all ages. All of the learning that this past 6 months has brought is hard to put to words. If you’ve been a part of this experience – either by owning or using one of our containers, or working with them by working at a restaurant partner that accepts them – thanks. Thank you very much. The Tiffin Project represents a significant bundle of changes to the food service industry and consumer purchasing behaviour at large – and we all know how change can be challenging.

Now, let me tell you about some of the learning that I’m talking about.

The most important thing that I could tell you is that we’ve raised over $1200 (CAD) so far to create our farm-to-table subsidy program for the harvest season of 2013. We can’t tell you exactly how that looks right now, but we can say that the Terra Nova farming initiative in Richmond, BC- headed by Chef Ian Lai – will be involved with The Noodle Box. This will be the first subsidized farm-to-table relationship that The Tiffin Project has created – one of many to come. Exciting, no?

Over $1200 (CAD) means that nearly 300 Tiffin Project containers are out on the streets of Vancouver, reducing waste every day at least once a day. Not one unit has been returned to date for any reason, nor have any complaints been communicated by any members of the public. The Tiffin Project has also received a couple of donations so far which we’ve been very thankful for!

Between the 2 Noodle Box locations, 116 units have been sold, and they’ve been used 241 times. That’s just one example of what’s track-able. All of the numbers we’re comfortable putting forth through our website, Twitter (@tiffinproject) and Facebook (/thetiffinproject), are rounded down figures. The waste reduction that The Tiffin Project represents will never be fully quantifiable, since our members are using them every day, all over the place, for all sorts of things. This isn’t a bad thing – it’s a great thing!

Given our minimal ability to market and promote ourselves, inside the confines of a non-profit organization, as well as an environmentally conscious one (that leaves out cheap printing!) – we think we’ve done pretty well so far! So, what’s next?

Wow! Where do we start?

I supposed I could start by saying that we at The Tiffin Project had to pass through a time where we were disappointed that the project didn’t work equally well with all of its partner restaurants. 5 very different food service models were chosen to start off this initiative, in order to understand how it might work with each. It was our hope in the beginning that it would work relatively well with each model, and it didn’t. It did work to its potential though, just not evenly across the board of all of the restaurant partners involved.

We found that our partners who are accustomed to selling a lot of takeout food, adopted the project easily, and those who aren’t – didn’t. At first that was disappointing. Then, however, it quickly became apparent that the restaurants that are doing more takeout food are producing more waste. Among our restaurant partners, the few that didn’t do too much takeout had trouble adopting the project. It was a learning experience, and, again – this is called The Tiffin Project for a reason. From what we’ve learned, we’re re-engineering our approach to our next choices in partnerships. And that brings us to our next most pressing thing to express – why we haven’t been acquiring new restaurant partners by the dozen!

Since some restaurant models will need special care with The Tiffin Project, we had to rule out some of the restaurants that we were talking to. Fable, for instance, didn’t work out like we’d planned – though Chef Trevor Bird is still keen on the idea. Developments with him and the project should take place in the spring of 2013. Tacofino and the food truck world will also need another approach – perhaps something like GO Box in Portland, OR – and their commissary kitchen isn’t doing takeout food at all as a position on the issue. Talks with Calabash have stalled as a result of myself, as well as the owners of Calabash, being over-involved in community, AND the chaotic nature of restauranteurs’ hours. Chef Aaron Ash, whose operation is Gorilla Food on Richards St. downtown, may be among the next partners, since his super-healthy and super-positive spot does about %25 of their business “TO GO”. That will be seen in the Spring of 2013 as well. Early communications are in development with the Save On Meats, East of Main Café, The Parker, and others to be named in early January. 2013 will also see non-food-centric establishments selling The Tiffin Project’s containers – The Soap Dispensary on Main St. at 18^th being one.

Going forward, we are not looking for partners that will benefit us in terms of branding – more so, we’ll be looking for restaurants and food service establishments producing lots of waste as a result of high volumes of takeout food. We’re also looking at creative partnerships, in order to explore all of our potential options. Basically, we’re looking to create community with existing opportunities, instead of trying to create new opportunities out of thin air like we’ve done in the past 6 months. At the end of the day – the more containers we sell, the more farm-to-table relationships we’ll be able to subsidize.

Before our first year on the streets of Vancouver comes to an end, we’ll be focusing on downtown eateries, food courts – and, because many members of our community are residents of Commercial Drive, Main St., and Kitsilano, we’ll be building out our partners in those areas too.

Concerning expansion – we’ve received communications from all over the world, about starting a project like this one in cities ranging from Bristol to New York to Auckland to Brazil to Singapore, to Saskatoon. Many have asked “How can I do this in my city?” The answer we’ve given these interested parties is this – “We’re trying to make a sustainable model here in Vancouver, and when we think we have it, we’ll let you know.” If a “Tiffin Project” happens somewhere else organically – don’t be surprised. Concerning expansion, there is much to say, but not before The Tiffin Project is firmly planted in Vancouver.

For all this learning, I’m blessed.

Next steps are very exciting for us. For starters – we’re taking on 3 interns in the New Year! They’ll be named shortly. We’ll be combining with BC’s SPEC and their “Green 2 Go” campaign in the New Year to more effectively address the core issues that The Tiffin Project is meant to address – not just takeout waste. We’re also in talks with CityStudio in order to try and get some of their students to join our team. Students from Emily Carr are analyzing the model of The Tiffin Project to prove its worth from a design standpoint. “Sprouts” up at UBC may be carrying our containers too soon, as they’re moving into a new space!

For all of the learning, we consider ourselves blessed at The Tiffin Project Foundation. For all that’s to come, we’re thankful for, and ready. Thank you for your support, and your patience in the development of this change that The Tiffin Project represents. Look forward to the spring of 2013!

Happy Holidays!

Thank you very much, if you’re one of the many who’ve reached out to us – to get involved, to start a Tiffin Project in your home town or city, or to give us recognition for what we’ve done as well as what we endeavour to do. And, if you’ve chosen to directly support us by buying one of our containers – thank you so much for supporting us while we’re still a small organization in a small space in time.

We have had communications from Bristol and London in the UK. From our southern neighbours, we have been contacted in great numbers – by people in New York, Miami, San Francisco, Portland – and many places in between. From inside our own Canadian borders, folks from Saskatchewan, Ontario and Quebec have contacted us. Victoria, for the record – is in the works. If you’re one of the many in on Vancouver Island who’ve spoken up – don’t worry; give us a few months! Someone from Brazil contacted us today, and we’ve had interest from elsewhere in Europe and other parts of the English-speaking world. The response really has been overwhelming.

From your questions, comments, and concerns, we’ve deduced that there are 3 important questions ahead for us. If you didn’t reach out independently – here’s where you can catch up on the conversation.

Firstly, we are having to re-evaluate our position as an incorporated Non-Profit Organization. At first we were picturing a modest community movement based around having our humble pie and eating it too – covering our ability to generate small amounts of money for a good culture shift, and covering what we saw in the beginning as our operating costs. Since then, the interest we’ve had from around the globe has caused us to ask ourselves a question – could we influence greater change if we change our model? We ask this openly simply because we understand that much of our support has been gained as a Non-Profit model – which comes with certain attached preconceptions.

Various advisors in the social venture community have told us to manage the money that we are managing through an incorporated business model (corporation)(“corporation”), and that we should leave the giving portion of the model to an appended charity. A new organizational structure under this rough description has recently been created in British Columbia, Canada. This proposed model could allow for easier adoption in other cities, and it would allow for us to grow in that direction of expansion more comfortably. Obviously we would stay true to our original visions of what The Tiffin Project could be, but we would have to put on a different hat. In the beginning, we were committed to being as grassroots as possible. Now that we’re at a point where we’re deciding who and what we want to be – with what we know that we want to do – we’re presented with a clear fork in our road.

The second question is simple: how quickly can we move The Tiffin Project to a town or city near you? Now, that’s a tough one.

Here in Vancouver, with the help of Vancity Credit Union (a.k.a. Vancity Bank, or just “Vancity” outside of colloquial references to the city itself), we’ve been able to create The Tiffin Project with a very small amount of investment. We cannot promise that other cities are ready for what the project represents, and we can’t assume that organizers in other cities will have the same networks that our founder and board of directors have access to. The short answer is this – The Tiffin Project took a lot of work to create. We’ll be very careful in our next steps – where we go to next, and how we will establish ourselves, location by location.

Thirdly, we have had many people contact us, who already have comparable containers, and who already do what The Tiffin Project is promoting. We saw this coming. As of right now, this is a campaign solely for owners of our containers. We have nothing against your containers; it’s not personal.  Please understand the following.

When a Tiffin Project member comes into a restaurant with their container – they do the work in bringing it in. Then, however, the restaurant does the rest – especially the restaurant’s kitchen workers. Basically, the restaurants involved in The Tiffin Project do just as much work to make the process functional as its supporters do. As of right now, all of the project’s partner restaurants have been trained to accommodate (to accept, give back, and discount meals to do with project members) The Tiffin Project’s containers – and The Tiffin Project’s containers only. They were chosen, the way they are, because they are easy to deal with. Allowing anyone to bring in any container would open up complications in the process for the restaurant side of all interactions. This, in our early stages, would be too much trouble.

Imagine for a second – how you like the routine of your job. Let’s say that you’re a graphic designer, and you work on a Mac. Now, how would you like it if your boss came to you and told you that you had to work on a PC for a few fifteen minute periods throughout the day, but that he expected your performance not to suffer at all. Pretend that it was just a simple client request. You could do it, without that much trouble – but, what if it were busy, or you had other things on the go that had you distracted. The Tiffin Project is slowly training not only restaurant lovers, but restaurant workers – to change. This change is going to be slow at first.

Internally, with The Tiffin Project’s board of directors, several ideas – like a membership card for people who already have non-disposable containers that they like to use for takeout food in lieu of disposable packaging – have come about. Once our restaurant partners are ready to train all of their staff to accommodate all shapes, sizes, and designs of containers – The Tiffin Project will announce that with pleasure.  Until then – please be patient!

The Tiffin Project welcomes all feedback. What’s better than feedback though? We need helping hands. We’ve taken it this far – who wants to help?

That’s all for today. The next post, this week, will be about new restaurant relationships that Tiffin Project members can look forward to in the near future!

Hunter Moyes will host the evening, and doing a talk at 10:30 PM. The evening will feature $5 drinks, sponsored by Stolichnaya vodka, wine by Cassandra Anderton of Good Life Vancouver, and beer by Philips Brewing. Door prizes have been provided by Richard Wolak (@VanFoodster), Lindsay Coulter (David Suzuki’s Queen of Green), the Green Table Network, and The Vancouver Aquarium by way of Oceanwise – as well as pieces from local jeweler Justine Brooks. The Tiffin Project will also be selling a block of 50 tiffins for $5 below retail price ($25 – $20 )– 5 will also be given away.

Please join us for a night of celebration to mark the start of The Tiffin Project’s influence on Vancouver food culture. Many foodies will be in attendance. Music will be taken care of by local DJ, Videographer and Documentary Filmmaker behind Hip Hop Eh – about Hip Hop culture in Canada. Come ask questions, meet people in the food scene, and have a good time prior to painting the town red (and green) this Saturday. Doors will open to the party at 9:00PM. Food will be serve between 9:30 and 10:30. Drinks will run from start to finish. Presentations, door prize raffle, and an address by project director Hunter Moyes will start around 11.

For more information e-mail the project – info@thetiffinproject.com.

This is the “long” story.

In 2009, while running West Pt. Grey’s Burgoo – a little bistro known for soups, stews, and all-around well-executed comfort food – Hunter J. Moyes was struck by an idea that stuck. He was taking food home, almost every day, because Chefs eat most of their meals at their restaurants, or from their restaurant’s ingredients at home. It didn’t feel right to him, as a then-junior member of Vancouver’s environmental community, using takeout containers. No disposable takeout container rubbed him the right way – let’s put it that way. It was at that time that he stumbled upon a tiffin, that he bought from Chutney Villa at Main and Broadway. Where he’d bought it didn’t matter; it was no less than love at first sight. From then on he used it every day, immediately after purchasing it – to take Burgoo’s cuisine home with him after his shifts, and to take home leftovers from the restaurants that he frequented.

He thought generally then about the restaurants in Vancouver that he loved to visit on his days off as a Chef, and the waste involved in his interactions with them. Noodle Box “TO GO” boxes (empty ones) weren’t strange to see at his place. Of course he’d recycle the container’s metal and cardboard separately. Styrofoam sushi boxes were occasional indulgences of his at the time. Takeout boxes from Nuba built up around his place too on occasion.

After some research, he found out that the tiffin container is the backbone of one of the most efficient business systems in the world – a meal delivery system in India – responsible for feeding great numbers, daily, without very much waste at all. When he found out about it, as a food engineer of sorts, responsible for feeding a couple hundred people daily, it was an amazing thing to wrap his mind around. At the time, running Burgoo, he was spending lots of money (thousands, yearly) on takeout containers, in order to accommodate his location’s takeout demand. His takeout containers were just sunk costs that ate away at his bottom line. Having eco-logic at play in my grey matter, he set his imagination to wander.

The idea came quickly, by way of a simple question: how much waste could be spared from Vancouver’s landfills, if thousands of people used tiffins like he was? And, then, what if he sold them? There was a profit margin there – a chance to generate funds for…something.

Some people look at the way things are as a long list of problems – others see great opportunities.

A year later, around the turn of 2011, personally: after much deliberation, formulation, and amateur fundraising – Hunter’s father called him to say that someone had already succeeded in doing what he had been thinking of doing with the tiffin! He pointed Hunter to a Globe and Mail article – a story which was echoed in other words through other publications. It involved a restauranteur named Shaffeen Jamal – a Vancouver man who’d already sold over 40,000 tiffins with the same idea in mind through a business of his in Granville Market. Shaffeen had almost succeeded in phasing out his takeout containers by using the tiffin. Naturally Hunter had to track him down, meet with him, and see where he was with his Tiffin Project. He started seeing tiffins around too; even then, the use of the tiffin was being recognized and adopted, whether or not he was to be involved!

After meeting with Shaffeen, The Tiffin Project took a step forward. Shaffeen told Hunter that he had sold almost 45,000 units, and filled around 200 tiffins in busy weeks. If every week was a busy week for him, he would be able to spare Vancouver’s landfills from 104,000 takeout containers annually. Hitting it off quickly – as well as two strangers from completely different backgrounds could – they asked themselves: what if we were able to sell 45,000 tiffins under the model that we were hashing out in a city of a few million, with restaurant partners all over? Hunter told Shaffeen that he would contact him when he’d drummed up eco-conscious investors and like-minded restaurant partners. The ball was then in Hunter’s court.

In the first weeks of 2012, after helping to firmly establish the newly-renovated Waldorf Hotel’s kitchen, under the Nuba restaurant group – Hunter sold the powers that be behind Nuba’s delicious mostly-vegan Lebanese cuisine on the idea of becoming the first restaurant to adopt The Tiffin Project on a large scale. Talks with Noodlebox made them the second official large-scale partner. Shortly after that, Hunter started talking Trevor Bird of Fable, Eric Pateman of Edible Canada, Mike Leung of Harvest Union – and the list goes on. On the side, at the same time, Hunter had secured funding for the project through Vancity as well! Talks with Shaffeen followed shortly thereafter. A board of directors was formed. Brainstorming a-plenty punctuated the process. But there was one thing that hadn’t yet been settled – the actual tiffin container.

See, Hunter loves his tiffin – his, tiffin. It’s been with him for years; his particular tiffin – it’s withstood harsh abuse. He wanted something exactly like his own tiffin, that would last for years under extreme duress. That, turned out to be hard to find. He talked to the nice lady who used to run Chutney Villa – Chindi – and that didn’t help. He had friends who travelled for the jewelry business scope out manufacturers overseas with pictures of his tiffin – for aspiration’s sake. That didn’t lead his process forward. Shaffeen too – both of them searched the globe for an ideal tiffin. Perhaps they were looking in vain for perfection. When all of the restaurant relationships were in place, and funding was in order, and Hunter was itching to get started – The Tiffin Project didn’t have…a tiffin yet. Clearly, this was an issue.

It was at that point that the project met Carolyn Cameron – the name behind Onyx containers. After going around town selling the idea for a while, Hunter was looking at the process of the project differently. He was personally inspired by his own tiffin, and by the way it’s used in India, but, it might not make the most sense for North America – Canada, specifically. Noodle Box wanted their own unit to suit their menu better. Nuba does such tremendous volumes daily that anything that was hard to handle was going to become an adoption hurdle. Shaffeen’s Curry2U tiffin is a 2-level unit, and the one Hunter had fallen in love with had 3. When Carolyn and Hunter met, The Tiffin Project took a big step forward.

And so – for a Chef’s love of food, for Vancouver’s love of its food culture, for BC’s farmers, and for North America’s ecological need to re-localize its food systems (while eating better at the same time) – The Tiffin Project began.

But, wait – where was the money going to go?

At first The Tiffin Project wanted to raise money to donate to NGO’s campaigns, or to initiatives to do with youth voting, or to foreign aid targets. Then, after taking a better look at the environmental footprint of mankind’s appetite from the perspective of a Chef, Hunter decided that he could do more to change the world through food than he could through politics and activism combined.

Vancouver has a world-class food culture. This recipe has one part of that fact in it. The re-localization of North American food systems has quickly become a new cultural necessity. This recipe has two parts of that fact in it. Currently, food system re-localization is being stagnated by cheap imported produce, which puts local produce at a less competitive price – however, as the price of energy rises (inevitable), the price of imported food items will rise as well as the need for the re-engineering of our food systems. This recipe has three parts of that in it. And, to finish the recipe – this process needs some sort of expediting engine. Yes, the “every little bit counts” approach of modern environmentalism is great, but the purchasing power of Vancouver’s restaurant community has the power to re-engineer its supporting agricultural landscape dramatically.

The reason that we don’t eat more locally in Vancouver’s restaurants is because of the current price gap between local and imported produce. Chefs use price, and convenience, as justification for sourcing their menus from the imported items that large-scale distributors favour. The Tiffin Project will serve as a subsidy program to bridge that gap, so that Chefs have no excuse not to strike up sustainable relationships with local producers. Together, we can be expediters of the re-localization of our food systems. And, this model can work in any city!

The Tiffin Project is a win-win-win situation for the environment, food-lovers, and the current economics of food systems. Thanks in advance for your support. Change isn’t easy – otherwise this age wouldn’t have so many problems to solve so urgently. You can start by helping us, by getting into the habit of bringing in your own Tiffin Project takeout container to your favourite restaurants, for a change.

This isn’t a community of the elite; this is a community for those who love, and – who love, to eat!

Hunter spoke to us about the Tiffin Project, a campaign with hopes to influence environmental and social change through food.

“This is a project, not a solution.”

Three key issues that Hunter discussed were local vs. imported produce, waste, and food security. He intends on addressing these issues through “tiffins”, which are non-disposable take out containers.  Check out his infographic, which best displays how it will bridge the gap between local and imported food and help support farmers, restaurants and consumers.

In brief he told us the story of how the idea came to mind with the idea triggered through his time working at Burgoo. He realized that in a year of grossing 2 million dollars they were using thousands of take out containers.  This is nothing compared to Noodle Box which has a 60/40 takeout to eat-in ratio, adding  up to 75 thousand take out containers in one year!

Like any good idea, it’s probably already been done. In this case, Hunter didn’t invent the idea; he’s simply expanding on it. It originated in India in 1880 as a meal delivery system where hundreds of thousands of meals are delivered and catered without waste. In Vancouver Shaffeen Jamal, a restauranteur, has been selling and using tiffins for years with Curry 2 Go.

Hunter’s expansion on the idea means connecting local businesses throughout Vancouver to adopt the tiffin in to their daily use. His vision is not merely to reduce landfill waste but to also support local farmers.

“The reason that we don’t eat more locally in Vancouver’s restaurants is because of the current price gap between local and imported produce. Chefs use price, and convenience, as justification for sourcing their menus from the imported items that large-scale distributors favour. The Tiffin Project will serve as a subsidy program to bridge that gap, so that Chefs have no excuse not to strike up sustainable relationships with local producers. Together, we can be expediters of the re-localization of our food systems.”

As a chef, Hunter understands how difficult it is to purchase local food when it comes at a premium price.  But with the $4 profit margin on the tiffins the extra money can be spent on buying local food and researching ways of eliminating food waste.

As a consumer, what’s in it for me?

It is human nature to wonder what the instant gratification of any project is, and this desire doesn’t go unsatisfied with the Tiffin Project. There will be an incentive for those who bring in the take out containers to participating restaurants including Nuba, Noodle Box, Curry2Go and soon Fable Kitchen. At Noodle Box for example they will offer $1 off, while Curry 2 Go offers Tiffin Thursdays (curries at reduced prices) and Nuba has created a separate tiffin-specific menu.

I agree with Hunter in saying “the Tiffin Project is a win-win-win situation for the environment, food-lovers, and the current economics of food systems.”  Follow his project on Twitter: @TiffinProject.

Oh, you were going to ask that too? Well then! Keep in mind, that tiffin just means “light fare”.

The Tiffin Project’s Founder, Hunter Moyes, originally wanted one, specific, 3-tiered tiffin for this
project – but couldn’t get it. That’s the short story. After over a year of coordinating with numerous
manufacturers in India and China, Hunter’s ideal unit became a troublesome object of desire.

The original tiffin, that’s featured in this weblog’s inaugural post, is Hunter’s tiffin. It’s been through a lot
(Hunter is rough on things, in general), and has proven to be near-indestructible. For The Tiffin Project,
however, it wasn’t ideal.

Firstly, there are 2 rough archetypal designs to tiffins. Both main designs involve a holder or cradle of
some sort, from which supportive sidings stem, to keep the tiffins’ compartments secure (and they
clamp together at its top). Tiffin designs vary in only one way with regard to this aspect of the traditional
unit’s design – one involves a pressurized clamp where its cradle fits together, and one involves an
interlock system with its cradle without as much securement force. The pressurized clamp is what
Hunter’s original tiffin had, and it performed reasonably well over time. It wasn’t quite water tight –
but good enough for picnics and camping. The style with the interlocking pieces just didn’t offer a tight-
enough seal over the tiffin’s compartments to really stand up to time’s ravages. This, really, is the main
difference between tiffin design styles. The interlocking model is the most popular model out there in
the world. That design is not water or air tight, however, it’s simple and durable, and so it has gained its
ground simply by showing up – so to speak. The clamp design is much more rare and more expensive
to manufacture – and, still, it is not air or water tight. The compartments themselves have all sorts of
variations, however, they all invariably fit into one another into a 2 or 3 tier stack (that was the other
main difference – some tiffins have 2 compartments, and some have 3; some have four, but they’re not
practical at all).

Over the course of a year and a half, Hunter and Shaffeen searched the globe for a 3-compartment tiffin
like Hunter had wanted. Hunter enjoyed that process more than Shaffeen did. It wasn’t just that – the
search – either. We wanted a manufacturing relationship that could tell us that its working conditions
were fair, and that it knew what it was to be concerned about the environment of the global village. This
proved to be even harder to find than their desired tiffin model. Hunter even tried going through the
nice lady that sold him his tiffin, and she still couldn’t uncover who’d she’s gotten them from in India.

One day, well into the process of Hunter and Shaffeen being worried about finding a unit, ever – another
bump in the path of The Tiffin Project presented itself. Hunter, in an interaction with a highly skilled
Chef, found that his tiffin was actually pretty hard to put together for someone who wasn’t familiar
with it. Hunter’s tiffin, though of a simple design involving only 3 compartments, was actually 8 pieces.
Hunter could put together his tiffin with his eyes closed, but he had a special relationship with it.
The Chef that he gave it to to toy with made it look more like a Rubix Cube in his interactions with it
(we’re talking about a very highly skilled Chef here)(assumed: a great deal of hand-eye aptitude). For a

moment, discouragingly, Hunter became worried that – given the expansion potential of the project –
The Tiffin Project’s adoption would be really slow if its units weren’t easy to interact with for restaurant
staff and, as Shaffeen puts them on the Curry2U website, “tiffin toters”.

Consider for a moment that Hunter is a Chef, and has spent many years in many result(s)-oriented
business environments. In such environments, nothing with a steep adoption curve has ever reached its
potential (see: molecular gastronomy). The containers that The Tiffin Project uses were chosen primarily
because they represent non-disposable containers that are roughly similar to the dimensions of the
average takeout container.

The Tiffin Project’s most important community partners are Nuba and The Noodlebox. Noodlebox’s
container is 1.1 litres. Their takeout boxes are roughly 1 litre, volume-wise. Nuba’s menu is completely
different, but represents a very common style of takeout container solution. Their unit, with its
removable partition, is roughly the same size as a large takeout container – which are usually
rectangular. Hunter has put incredible amounts of food in and out of both containers to prove their
versatility.

So, The Tiffin Project’s unit, which came from Carolyn Cameron of Onyx Containers – which will be
detailed in another post – was chosen because of its air-tight seal, sturdy construction, the worker
conditions within which it’s manufactured, and the ease-of-adoption that it offers by being similar in
dimensions to the disposable containers that it’s endeavouring to replace.

The Tiffin Project hopes to gain the support of the food community, as well as the environmental
community – and the general population of takeout-lovers. If this project matures quickly to its
potential, Onyx Containers will be designing a specific 3-compartment tiffin-style unit for their
campaigns, for release in 2013.

Does that sooth your curiosity? If not, please feel free to contact us.

Then on June 5^th, prolific Food Writer and Tweetist Richard Wolak (a.k.a. @VanFoodster) will be having his first-ever Food Talks event at the W2 Media Cafe. Hunter Moyes will be there to speak about The Tiffin Project there just before 8pm. Trevor Bird, one of this season’s competitors on Top Chef Canada and Owner/Chef of Kitsilano’s new Fable (a restaurant name play on farm-to-table) will also be speaking, along with Food Writer and Author of “East Meets West” Stephanie Yuen, Oceanwise Manager at the Vancouver Aquarium Mike McDermid, and the Operations Manager of Vancouver Farmer’s Markets Robert LaQuaglia. Tickets for the event can be purchased here, and the full event site can be accessed here.

From there, stay tuned to The Tiffin Project’s social media feeds for news on a launch party in late June, as well as how you can get involved. Once launched, Tiffin Project Founder Hunter Moyes will be focusing on collecting more restaurant partners, and speaking with City of Vancouver officials about wider applications – think! Food Courts! Schools! Delis! More! Maybe dabbawalas!

The one measurable impact that this project will make – without question – will be the number of takeout containers that it spares from Vancouver area landfills. These numbers will be reported online through the blog section of this website monthly – based on sales numbers from the project’s restaurant partners. These numbers will add up quickly.

That leaves the playing field wide open for change! The Tiffin Project would like to hear from you. Please contact us, and tell us what you think the most important solvable issues of Vancouver’s food system are – if not those solved by subsidizing our restaurant partners’ abilities to support local producers – the project is open to leveraging the grey matter of its supportive food community.

This whole process is an educational one. The Tiffin Project’s founder, local Chef Hunter Moyes, has lots of ideas up the sleeves of his uniform, but knows enough about food to know that he’ll need a lot of help to make the most of The Tiffin Project Foundation Fund. The project will essentially educate food service establishments and consumers alike to do their best to phase out their use of disposable takeout containers – both sides of the project’s partners will be pitching in.

All spending associated with The Tiffin Project Foundation Fund will be detailed herein. All potential ideas concerning spending will be presented to the public through blog entries titled “Proposition #X”. Sign up to the project’s mailing list to be notified of online voting opportunities to do with the project’s propositions. Participate in conversation online through Facebook and Twitter to become more engaged on the gains of The Tiffin Project, and to have your say on its potential directions and applications.

This photo is of a Singapore Cashew Curry dish from Noodlebox on Homer St. It was eaten with non-disposable chopsticks too – for the record.