Learn More – The People’s Pantry Food Recovery Society

Healthy Hampers Program

The People’s Pantry Food Recovery Society’s Healthy Hampers Program provides nutritious recovered food hampers on a weekly basis to people facing food insecurity in the Tri-Cities. Since May, 2020, we have been operating as a food recovery society, working with community groups like United Way, Immigrant Link Society, New View Society, House of Omeed, City Reach, Share, Port Moody Senior Housing Society and others, building a base of regular hamper families and individuals. Since our very humble beginnings during the pandemic to the challenges many are facing due to the rising cost of living and food costs, we have seen a marked increase in the demand for our hampers.

How The Program Works
Several times a week, our volunteers collect recovered food from a variety of retailers, wholesalers and growers. Each week, on our Hamper distribution days (currently Sundays and Mondays), our Hamper volunteers sort the food and assemble hampers. We do our best to ensure that our hampers are tailored to meet the needs of hamper recipients, especially dietary or cultural restrictions. Hampers are picked up by hamper families according to pre-arranged appointments on Sunday and Monday afternoons. To receive a hamper, you must register with us.

Did You Know?

We are currently providing between 60-70 hampers each week, supporting over 200 people.
We also support 4 agencies with hampers or bulk items.
The demand is such that we now have a waiting list.

Food Recovery

As Canadians, we are truly fortunate to live in a country where we have an abundance of food; however, that abundance has led us to many wasteful food management practices that ultimately results in 4 million Canadians, including 1.4 million children, struggling to access healthy food.

In the Second Harvest report The Avoidable Crisis of Food Waste: the roadmap the call to action is clear: we need to re-think how we value food at each stage of the value chain. The issue lies on both sides of the equation: there is a strong business, social, and environmental case to reduce food loss and food waste. Consumers play a big role as well – we over shop and allow food to spoil or throw it out because it passes its best before date because we think it is inedible. All told, 11.2 million tonnes of good, nutritious food is currently being wasted in Canada today; this is enough to feed everyone in Canada for 5 months.
Furthermore, approximately 30% of all food produced in the world is lost or wasted; in British Columbia, organic waste represents 40% of material sent to our landfills. As it decomposes, it generates significant levels of greenhouse gases which increase global warming and contributes to climate change. This equates to a global carbon footprint of approximately 4.4 billion tonnes of CO2 annually. Source : https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/environment/waste-management/food-and-organic-waste

Did you know?
Our average weekly recovered food donation from the 5 local stores we collect from on one day is 1200kg.
Interested in donating surplus food? Contact us.

Food Safety

At The People’s Pantry, we ensure safety, whether for our staff, volunteers, hamper families, or food, is always our top priority. When it comes to food safety, let’s talk about best before dates.

A best before date is not an expiry date and has little to do with food safety. All too often, consumers see a best before to mean “bad after” or worse. At the same time, food retailers and manufacturers are sometimes reluctant to donate food that is close to its best before date because of concerns around liability, reputation, or not knowing of organizations willing to accept this food.

In Canada, only 5 foods require expiry dates:
・Nutritional supplements
・Meal replacements
・Baby formula and other human milk substitutes
・Pharmacist-sold foods for very low-energy diets
・Formulated liquid diets

Food Handling
The People’s Pantry Society follows all BC Food Safe and food handling requirements.

Guidance
We follow all Provincial Health guidance, Workplace BC protocols, and Food Handling requirements to ensure a safe working environment for our volunteers and families.