I became familiar with Mealshare when I participated in International Waffle Day at Cafe Medina a few months ago. The concept was simple: buy a waffle, and a waffle would be donated to someone in need. As a person who dines out regularly, I thought that it was nice to give back while doing simply eating at a restaurant. Recently, 11 new restaurants in Vancouver joined Mealshare, including Craft Beer Market, Portside Pub, Farmer’s Apprentice, The Oakwood Canadian Bistro, The Acorn, Brix Restaurant and Wine Bar, Meet on Main, Bambuddha, The Greek, Aphrodite’s Pie Shop, and Big Rock Urban Eatery. I was invited to their launch event at Craft Beer Market for a sampling of Craft’s Mealshare meals and to help us celebrate the new campaign and launch.
How does Mealshare work?
Supporting Mealshare is easy. Buy a branded menu item at a partner restaurant, and a meal is provided to someone in need. It is essentially buy one give one. For every Mealshare items sold, restaurants give funding to Mealshare to purchase ingredients required to make a meal at a partner charity. In Vancouver, meals are donated locally through Mission Possible, a non-profit in the Downtown Eastside that helps those challenged by homelessness and poverty. There is no added cost to the customer. Currently, Mealshare is partnered with 200 restaurants across 7 cities, and has provided over 270,000 meals to people in need.
Two of the Three Founders, Andrew Hall and Derek Juno
Craft Beer Market Joins Mealshare
Craft Beer Market joined Mealshare as a partner restaurant with two Mealshare branded items: the harvest garden sandwich and Pacific lingcod. We had samples of the dishes and the full dishes were presented at the event.
The harvest garden sandwich had crunchy quinoa, spent grain and white cheddar patty served on toasted focaccia and topped with lemon roasted mushrooms, onion and a parsley shallot aioli.
The Pacific lingcod is an Oceanwise dish. It had house made lemongrass, fresh turmeric and coconut sauce, served on a bed of grilled cauliflower and steamed rice.
Whenever a customer at Craft Beer Market orders these two entrees, they will be supporting Mealshare and helping someone in need.
For more information, visit http://www.mealshare.ca/