City council intrigued by food rescue pitch

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This article was published 19/10/2021 (1789 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon could benefit from millions of dollars worth of food that would otherwise spoil, but help is required from city council to make it happen.

That’s according to Ross Robinson, the executive director of the John Howard Society of Brandon, and board chair Ted Dzogan, who requested help from the city at Monday’s council meeting to find a suitable location where truckloads of food can be accepted and stored.

Because Brandon doesn’t have a suitable facility for that purpose, the two men said the city is missing out on food waste located just two hours away in Winnipeg.

Robinson clarified that in this case, food waste doesn’t mean the stuff that gets swept off the grocery store floor.

“What we’re talking about is food that has been produced, has been put into the distribution system and is not making it to your plate before the best-before date,” he said. “The lesson here is that the best-before date means nothing. There’s only five items that are controlled by best-before, none of the food that we consume.”

Because major production facilities are not generally in Manitoba and major distribution centres are in Winnipeg, there are issues with transporting food to Brandon and Westman, including the lack of suitable storage facilities, according to Dzogan.

“When we set out to do this, we tried to rent freezer space so we could bring in food in quantity that was rescued, and there just physically is none,” Dzogan said. “It’s not available at any price in the area.”

The freezer situation, he clarified, means Brandon isn’t equipped to handle a pallet load of food, let alone a truckload. Because of this, Brandon is missing out on millions of dollars of surplus food.

“We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel here. We’re trying to leverage the existing food network and build upon the points where it’s easiest to build upon the waste,” Dzogan said.

“Often though, the easiest point is the distribution point. This is food that’s in a warehouse or on a truck that has nowhere to be. The issue with it is that these full trailer loads can often be anywhere between 30,000 and 57,000 pounds and there is no single not-for-profit or social agency in the area that can consistently accept food in that quantity although … they need it.”

There’s a capacity to accept dry goods, but storage space is spread out between multiple partners in town. One such partner is the Brandon Neighbourhood Renewal Corporation, which Dzogan said has lent storage space to the John Howard Society, including approximately 27,000 packages of rescued Clorox cleaning wipes.

One of the society’s food projects has been the Everyone Eats Brandon program, which provides meals twice a week at low or no cost to locals.

To store frozen food for the program, Robinson said the society has been renting a reefer trailer. That costs the organization $525 a month is rental fees plus $90 worth of diesel a day to keep food cold during high heat periods.

This trailer is being taken back by its owner at the beginning of November, which means Everyone Eats and the rest of the society’s projects will soon be without freezer space.

Robinson and Dzogan asked for the city’s help to find a suitable location to create freezer space as it has partnered with other non-profits to find real estate.

They want to establish a freezer site in Brandon consisting of two shipping containers with freezer units and two shipping containers for dry goods to get started.

All that would be required is a piece of land 100 feet by 100 feet large.

Costs for those containers and for preparing the site would be covered by federal funding and operating costs would be handled through a co-operative arrangement with other organizations, but a suitable piece of land on which to establish it is needed.

Additionally, the society has been approached by private businesses interested in taking advantage of locally available food storage.

That would let the society not only keep its current programs running but also expand them through relationships with distribution centres, shipping companies and other businesses that can supply them with “unlimited” bread, potatoes and onions and rescued food from restaurants and stores approaching their best-before dates.

“We share these with every other not-for-profit serving food in Brandon,” Robinson said.

They stated that since May 2020, when Everyone Eats launched, the program has saved more than 150 tonnes of food that would have otherwise been thrown out.

Robinson said his organization was the only one to apply for that federal funding in Westman and if it is not taken advantage of, it will all return to Ottawa.

If the whole arrangement turns out to be unsuccessful or unsustainable, the shipping containers could be resold and the land returned to its previous condition.

Coun. Jan Chaboyer (Green Acres) expressed support for the plan, saying it aligns with the city’s food charter. She asked the presenters what utilities and access the proposed site would need.

They said it would need truck access and three-phase electrical access.

Dzogan said it would be ideal if a solution was found before January, as that’s when a new federal program worth $50 million will be available to community groups to buy locally produced food.

Last year, the John Howard Society participated in the program and received enough chicken, shrimp and beef to make 15,000 meals and that was with the limited amount of space they currently have.

Mayor Rick Chrest said council would ask city staff to research possible locations, but warned: “the city doesn’t have all sorts of land available, although we do have some.”

“This is certainly going to be, at least in my opinion, a real college try at it,” Chrest said. “It’s a very, very encouraging prospect that you gentlemen have come up with and obviously started in on. It could mean a great deal to our community, especially all of the other non-profits that are working in this realm to try and feed people.”

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