Food bank planning Atlantic Canada's first 'perishable food rescue'

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Greener Village in Fredericton is working on Atlantic Canada’s first “perishable food rescue” – a program to redistribute fruits, veggies and other perishable foods otherwise destined for the compost pile.

The food bank and support service centre announced the construction of the facility this week.

“I think we are reaching a very difficult part in the fight against food insecurity because demand is increasing so rapidly that we need to look at different ways of doing things, think outside the box at how we can increase resources into the network,” Greener Village CEO Alex Boyd said.

“And not just any resource. The right resources: healthy food, fresh food, local food, all of those things are important pieces to have to give people a leg up on the situation they find themselves in.”

Boyd said the new facility, to be constructed on-site at Greener Village, will make ready-to-eat and frozen meals from recovered fresh foods that would otherwise be destined for waste.

He says the food will come from local farmers, retail products that would be wasted, and the Greener Village partnering agencies such as Food Banks Canada and Food Depot Alimentaire.

The plan is to redistribute these to homeless shelters, community kitchens, school nutrition programs, and other food charities across the province.

Boyd said this will increase Greener Village’s capacity to feed more people and allow the organization to ensure that 60 percent of the products in each grocery box it sends out are fresh food items, while diverting thousands of pounds of food from landfills.

More than a third of food distributed in Canada ends up in the trash, according to the National Zero Waste Council, which tracks and works toward solutions to curb waste in Canada.

The program is expected to cost $6 million and construction on the facility is expected to begin in September.

Boyd said the building will consist of a food triage space to receive fresh items, a commercial grade kitchen with the necessary processing equipment “where we can take a pallet of carrots, for instance, and peel them, dice them, steam them and package them,” and a commercial grade refrigeration and freezer system.

“The frozen product can be distributed within the food bank network for a long period of time as opposed to just pushing fresh food out the door as fast as possible because it is about to go bad,” he said. “It is a way for us to be able to capture resources more effectively and hold those resources at the right temperature until we utilize them to serve people in need. “

Boyd said fundraising for the facility will kick off on May 8.