By: Amal Javed Abdullah, Staff Writer
Fast Facts
Name: Alia Sunderji
Pronouns: She/Her/Hers
Department Affiliation: Beedie School of Business
Businesses: Luv the Grub and Liv & Lola
Hometown: Vancouver, B.C
Hobbies: Hiking, surfing, salsa dancing, and biking
Fun Fact: Sunderji also sings, and some of her songs used to play on the radio.
Alia Sunderji is a powerhouse social entrepreneur and SFU instructor who runs Luv the Grub, a Vancouver-based social enterprise that has both an environmental and socio-economic mission. The Peak sat down with her for a sneak peak behind the magic she puts out through her work.
Partnering with local farmers and produce markets, Sunderji repurposes bumped, bruised and misshapen fruits and vegetables — perfectly good to eat, but still rejected by supermarkets — as ingredients for making jams, chutneys and spreads. She hires individuals with barriers to employment, and her staff is a full spectrum of people with different barriers: refugees, people who have experienced trauma, low-income youth and seniors, transitioning youth, youth with mental illness, individuals with language barriers, and more. Her goal is to create delicious spreads for the local market with local produce while solving local problems.
The idea for Luv the Grub was born when Sunderji was teaching BUS453: Sustainable Innovation. The class focuses on turning socio-economic and environmental issues in the world into opportunities.
“[Students] look for problems, they do ethnography or empathetic research and they really get to understand who it faces and the problem itself very, very intimately. And then they come up with a point of view statement, like ‘these are needs,’ and then they just go into rapid ideation [ to brainstorm] solutions.”
One year, her students’ research stumbled across the issue of food waste. They found that there was produce being discarded because it was not sufficiently in shape to be sent to supermarkets, but was still perfectly edible. Even worse, their research showed that it cost more to dispose of the products than it did to donate them.
Sunderji did some supplemental research of her own, talking to farmers, food and produce importers, and other markets that she felt understood the issue. Sunderji already had a social business in Guatemala, but she was at a point where she was looking for a way to give back locally, in her own community. Everything lined up perfectly, and that’s when inspiration struck: Luv the Grub was born.
Originally, she cold-called farmers and local produce markets in Vancouver, opening up the conversation by asking if they had experienced issues with produce waste, and eventually leading to the ask: would they be interested in either donating their excess unsellable produce or selling it at a discount?
“Almost every person said yes,” Sunderji told us. “It’s a huge issue.”
Poverty alleviation is a big and very personal part of Sunderji’s drive and passion for this project. Her mother came to Canada as a refugee from Uganda — Sunderji told us that the dictator at the time — Idi Amin — had ordered the expulsion of all Asians from Uganda, and they were forced to leave their homes, families, and businesses behind to find a new life. In addition, her father died when she was five years old. Watching her mother struggle as a single parent in a new country shaped Sunderji’s view of giving back to the community.
“It means a lot to do good by her… and to be able to help people with similar barriers and to to give people an evenly levelled field to opportunities,” Sunderji commented.
As is the case with every brave soul who embarks on a mission to save the world, once she began the project, Sunderji begin to run into roadblocks. One of the unexpected problems she had not anticipated was how hard it was to come up with new products, having overestimated how much her food innovation background would come in handy. Previously, she had worked as an Associate Brand Manager for Tim Horton’s, coming up with new breakfast items all the time, so she thought that it would be easy once she opened up her own food business. She soon realized that her work had been in marketing, and that now that she was working in operations, she would have to learn everything from the top.
“Even something like learning to scale was tough, being efficient. . .” Sunderji says. She admits that they did waste food at first when they were still experimenting and learning just how long produce lasts, but they were quick to learn how to mitigate the problem.
Another challenge Sunderji faces at the moment is managing all the different hats she has to wear. While she does have employees to create the jams and spreads, she is still the main worker behind everything that goes on at Luv the Grub. Other than hiring and managing, her job title even includes all the small, mundane tasks of her business: getting the necessities for labeling, keeping up her knowledge on food regulation, running the Instagram page . . . While she finds it a struggle to manage everything, she still feels that she’s really lucky.
“When you have a business, you should be very active. Even when I’m being passive, people are still reaching out to carry the product. I think that when you do something that you care about and that you’re passionate about, people see it and then they subscribe to it.”
While it’s only been a year and a half since Luv the Grub has been in business, Sunderji is happy with the success they’ve enjoyed so far. An especial triumph for her is Luv the Grub selling on Granville Island, and seeing the changes in her employees, and how they’re able to progress through their barriers.
“That’s why I do what I do,” Sunderji says emphatically. “If I’m exhausted, that makes me energized, to be honest. To see that what we’re doing is really helping the people I want it to.” she said.
Something else she’s very proud of is how far the product itself has progressed, to the point that Luv the Grub now has a commercial kitchen. She told us about the pleasure of “hearing from people who love the product not only because of what we do, but the product itself. I don’t want it to be a charity, I want it to be a product that people buy and love it.”
An especially vital stakeholder for Sunderji has been the Drive Youth Employment Services (D-Yes), a youth employment agency that she has worked with for the past eight months.
“They have probably been the most instrumental to everything I do,” Sunderji said. For the last eight months, they have helped Luv the Grub grow by providing a space, connecting Sunderji with employment agencies across Vancouver (including their own), and they were able to find Sunderji a coordinator to supervise the production of the jams and spreads. “They’re probably just the best partner you could ever have.”
When she’s not busy with all of the above, another one of Sunderji’s roles is teaching business at SFU. She began working as an instructor three years ago, at SFU and at Fraser International College (FIC. She started with BUS453, and is now teaching BUS238, as well as BUS200 (FIC).
“I do it because I love the energy I get from students,” she told us. “Being able to help them … to push them with their ideas is I think the greatest blessing of my career.”
To keep up with Sunderji’s busy career or learn more about Luv the Grub at luvthegrub.com, like them on their Facebook at facebook.com/luvthegrub, or follow them on Instagram at @luvthegrub.
[…] Social entrepreneur and instructor Alia Sunderji makes change with Luv the Grub […]