Sustainability Spotlight: Shonah Chalmers

Shonah Chalmers, Culinary Professor and Humber alumnus, is the second member of the Humber and Guelph-Humber community to be featured.

As a sustainability leader in the foodservice industry, Shonah has positively impacted the Humber community for more than 10 years. Shonah explains that “in cooking, you’re always sort of sustainable,” because as a chef you must use all your food supplies, and most importantly use everything properly, for cost and waste reduction purposes.

For as long as Shonah can remember, sustainability has always been a priority, “when I was younger, we didn’t have a lot, so we didn’t waste a lot.” Shonah acknowledges that throughout her career as a chef she has been sustainable and not even realized it. This is something she aims to teach her students, “[the food service industry] are the biggest contributors [to food waste] that can make a change and can affect things positively or negatively based on really small choices.”

“I believe that if I can share some ideas and some parts of what I’ve learned about sustainability and get people talking about it, it can have a ripple effect,” says Shonah.

To learn more about Shonah Chalmers, read the full feature article on Humber’s Office of Sustainability’s website.