Nova Scotia Launches Pilot for Reusable School Lunch Packaging

The Province of Nova Scotia is introducing reusable packaging for its expanding school lunch programs, aiming to reduce waste from the initiative. For the 2024-25 school year, the Nova Scotia School Lunch Program served over 4.7 million lunches. While this achievement highlights the commitment to student nutrition, it also resulted in significant environmental waste.

In response to this challenge, the program will expand in the 2025-26 school year to include all schools with middle and junior high grades, supported by a provincial investment of $80 million. To further its sustainability efforts, Nova Scotia will pilot reusable lunch containers in 34 schools starting at the end of February. The initiative will provide reusable packaging for approximately 26,000 lunches per week.

The reusable containers are supplied by Friendlier, a Canadian company founded in 2019 by two chemical engineers in Guelph. This pilot project is a collaboration between Friendlier, the Province of Nova Scotia, and Chartwells, a food service company. “Friendlier is proud to partner with the Province of Nova Scotia and Chartwells to pilot reusable packaging for the Nova Scotia School Lunch Program,” said Jacquie Hanton, co-founder and Chief Revenue Officer at Friendlier. “By making reuse simple and accessible, Friendlier empowers students to eliminate daily packaging waste and build habits that last a lifetime.”

The initiative is part of a broader movement towards sustainability in Canada, with Friendlier currently partnering with over 200 locations nationwide. The containers provided will be collected for professional cleaning, allowing for reuse up to 100 times. Since its inception, Friendlier has achieved the milestone of over 3.3 million containers reused across Canada in 2025.

Through this pilot program, Nova Scotia not only aims to enhance the nutritional offerings of its school lunch program but also to instill environmentally responsible practices among students. The results of this initiative could set the stage for similar sustainability efforts in other provinces, as educational institutions increasingly seek to balance nutrition with environmental stewardship.