How this woman's app is offering one of many paths we need to tackle food security

When oceanographer Mirella Leis moved from Brazil to Newfoundland and Labrador in 2013 to start a graduate program in geography, she was looking forward to tucking into one meal after another of super-fresh seafood, right from the wharf.

Imagine her surprise when Leis who was used to buying fish exactly that way before she left Brazil realized she couldn't continue that here.

Not only that, much of that legendary seafood was flowing to markets (often far away) without making stops at local vendors. As well, it wasn't even legal then to buy straight from the wharf. While that law changed a couple of years after Leis arrived, it's still very difficult for ordinary people to buy fish straight from the harvester.

SoLeis is doing something about it. She's working on an app called the Fish Market, which is currently in testing. The idea is simple: you load the app, and find harvesters who have seafood to sell, and where.

You can't download the Fish Market yet from an app store, but that may change soon. Earlier this week, Leis won an innovation challenge sponsored by non-profit group Food First NL. Last Saturday, Leis made her case in the St. John's Food System Kickstarter competition, going head to head with four other finalists, all of whom had strong ideas of their own.

The goal behind the kickstarter was to find practical ideas to address food security in the St. John's area. I had more than a passing interest in the activity: Sarah Crocker of Food First asked me to volunteer to work with the five competitors, specifically to help them hone the two-minute pitches they made for the judges.

WATCH | Mirella Leis made this video pitch for the Food First NL Kickstarter competition:

I agreed straight away, and was deeply impressed with the ideas. There's Leis, who has been working on her app for months, and will be using her $3,000 prize to take data gleaned from testers to fine-tune her app, and bring the Fish Market to anyone who wants it, for free.

Another competitor was NL Eats, a group of young adults in St. John's who have done inspiring work during the pandemic, bringing food to the housebound and other vulnerable people during the pandemic. In just a year, they've helped no less than 1,300 people. NL Eats is now working on (among other projects) a network of community gardens involving 56 students at eight different schools.

There was the Wellness Collective, which aims to connect community gardens in St. John's with local food banks, which often lackfood that is fresh and high in nutrients.

There was the Big Feed Club, an upstart delivery company that is building a way of bringing food to people who can't get it themselves, while emphasizing carbon offsets and paying its drivers a living wage. (Co-founder Bradley Russell is definitely not a fan of the gig economy.)

How food can build community

I also met Christiana and Sunday Emmanuel, who run Afro Kitchen NL, who want to turn their nascent business they make meals for other Nigerian expats every weekend, on a takeout basis into a bricks-and-mortar enterprise. Their dream is not just for a restaurant;their pitch was about how food brings a community together. Their idea is not just to address a gap in the large west African community that has been growing rapidly in metro St. John's, but to use food to bring everyone in the community together, too. After all, they noted, St. John's folks are always looking for more food options.

WATCH |Christiana and Sunday Emmanuel spoke recently withIfe Alaba for our segmentBeing Black in N.L.:

Being Black in NL: Afro Kitchen

55 years ago

Duration 5:52

Ife Alaba chats virtually with Sunday and Christiana Emmanuel, owners of Afro-Kitchen NL in St. John's.

Right now, the Emmanuels (who came to St. John's so Sunday could attend Memorial University) are making meals on Sunday afternoons at the kitchen of the Thyme cooking school on Torbay Road. Last weekend, I dropped in on them to pick up an order (it was delicious, by the way) and to learn more about their plans. I think they're on their way.

We hear the phrases "food security" and "food insecurity" a fair bit these days, and you might think they can be used interchangeably.

That's not quite the case, as they speak to different problems. Food insecurity is about the constraints someone has in being able to affordthe food they need. Food security is about the constraints that a given place has to produce all the food it needs. (On the latter point, it was startling for Leis to see the disconnect of how much seafood here is bypassing local plates.)

Both of these issues are pointy in a place like Newfoundland and Labrador, where on the one hand many people can't afford a healthy diet, and on the other hand, we rely massively on imported food. According to Food First, 71 per cent of our food is imported, and we have a produce supply of just two or three days. As well, about 13 per cent of N.L. households are classified as food insecure that is, they do not have enough money to buy sufficient food.

• Weekend Briefing: Read earlier editions of this column

Sunday Emmanuel told us a story about food security from the point of view of a new immigrant, and what it was like to move to a place where everything about the food culture was new and disorienting.

"You can be surrounded by food and still starve," he said. The Emmanuels found their footing, and more: Afro Kitchen NL is already making its mark on the local food scene.

Many approaches, many ideas needed

Addressing food security and insecurity is no easy task. My experience this month bears out the thinking that we need many approaches, and many idea, from many points of view. I found the experience of connecting with the folks in the Food First Kickstarterquite inspiring.

For more than a year, CBC Newfoundland and Labrador has been bringing you a series of stories on food insecurity called Fed Up. Producer Amy Joy and reporter Adam Walsh did much of the heavy lifting with the series, which was under way before the COVID-19 pandemic crashed into our lives and pushed into focus just how insecure food can be.

In the weeks to come, we'll be bringing you a new series, From the Ground Up, which will look at local food production, often from the lens of community. Amy is working with reporter Lindsay Bird and Here & Now's Carolyn Stokes on those stories.

It's worth noting that three of the pitches in the Food First Kickstarter came from immigrants, people who are not just finding a home here in Newfoundland and Labrador, but are helping to find solutions that will benefit many people.

Food First NL continues to diginto plenty of issues, including what and how we access our food. It's such a fundamental thing: we all eat, we all need nutrition, we all need community. When you look carefully at many issues poverty, isolation, community, resilience, quality of life, independence, belonging the lens of food very often comes to the fore.

We are what we eat, after all. And we need to learn more, and do more, about how we get our food, and about who has access to what.

Read more from CBC Newfoundland and Labrador