Published on November 20, 2025
La Transformerie: Delicious Solutions to Food Waste
Guillaume Cantin made a name for himself in Québec’s culinary scene when he won the very first season of Les Chefs! in 2010. Following his victory, he continued his journey in the restaurant world until 2016, when a simple challenge from a friend opened his eyes to what he truly wanted to do with his life.
“One evening, my friend Thibault Renouf said to me, ‘You’re a chef—you should be able to cook a gourmet meal made entirely from waste!’ I didn’t want to do it; the idea repulsed me,” Guillaume recalls. But he accepted the challenge. “Seeing the incredible quality of food being thrown out by grocery stores, that’s when it clicked: this was the problem I needed to tackle.”
That’s how La Transformerie and its flagship project, Les Rescapés, were born.
Here’s our interview with its founder, chef Guillaume Cantin, who has set himself the mission of making people fall in love with food again—so that food waste becomes a thing of the past.
What is the Les Rescapés project?
It’s a carefully designed initiative aimed at reducing food waste by recovering unsold items from major grocery chains. We receive a bit of everything—for example, in addition to fruits and vegetables, we also get fish, meat, dry goods, and more.
We begin with a first sorting stage: 67% of what we receive is redistributed to food assistance organizations. Another 26% is used to make our homemade products (spreads, marmalades, and sauces). The remaining 7% cannot be used and is sent to composting.
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What is the selection process for choosing the ingredients you use?
It’s important to understand that we depend entirely on unsold products—we work with whatever we receive. So we took the time to analyze which fruits and vegetables were most often left unsold, and those became the foundation of our recipes.
What are your most popular products?
We’ve created three product lines: spreads, marmalades, and sauces.
Our apple pie spread is our top seller and a clear consumer favorite. It’s filled with cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. It truly tastes like apple pie—just without the crust!
Next, our citrus marmalade is another crowd-pleaser: it’s made of 90% orange and 10% clementine.
Finally, people are often pleasantly surprised by our apple and Madras curry sauce, where Indian spices blend beautifully with apple and clementine zest. We suggest serving it with shrimp, grilled chicken, or tofu, for example.
What causes are closest to your heart?
Everything we do is driven by our desire to help fight climate change. Many scientists believe that tackling food waste could significantly reduce its effects.
Secondly, I want to make sure everyone has enough to eat, which is why a large portion of what we receive is redistributed to food banks.
What three words would you use to describe your organization?
Love, Mobilization, Impact.
Love, because we want everyone to fall in love with food again. That’s what will help us fight food waste.
Mobilization, because our organization wouldn’t exist without its large community of volunteers (more than 1,200!), an engaged board of directors, and incredible partners.
Impact, because that’s what we strive to create in our community.
What’s coming in 2023 for La Transformerie?
We’re very excited to reveal something we’ve been working on for nearly two years: a living lab.
We’ve built something very special in partnership with the École de technologie supérieure, which will allow us to explore current issues and bring together a large number of experts in our projects. Stay tuned!
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Why are you proud to be a member of Aliments du Québec?
We have so many beautiful foods produced right here in Québec—we need to celebrate them! I also know that local production helps strengthen the local economy. That’s why we have 10 products certified “Aliments préparés au Québec.”
They’re now available in 140 points of sale across the province.
