Food rescue store moving to bigger digs in Town Centre

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This article was published 06/03/2024 (758 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Brandon’s Food Rescue Store will be moving its inventory — and its mission to provide affordable food to the community and save it from the landfill — to a new location.

The store will be moving across the street from its current site on Rosser Avenue to a space inside The Town Centre, next to the former Remington’s restaurant entrance and former Fitness Quest spot.

This will be the third location and second move for the non-profit, which first opened in 2021.

“Because of our demand, we want to provide a better shopping experience for our customers,” Brandon Food Rescue operations manager Ross Robinson told the Sun, adding the store has signed a three-year lease for The Town Centre space.

The shop sells a variety of perishable and non-perishable food items that are around their best-before dates at a discounted price. The food would otherwise typically end up in a landfill. Last year, the project saved $2.3 million worth of food and more than three million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.

The new location is anticipated to open on April 4.

Robinson said the store has outgrown its current space at 719 Rosser Ave. The new location aims to provide customers with an area for parking, a space that is wheelchair accessible, and a spot for waiting in line outside of the elements. The Town Centre also offers a loading dock, which helps staff more easily stock shelves.

“We had pallets of tomatoes several weeks back,” Robinson said. “(Now) instead of hand-bombing them in and out of a truck, we bring it in, use a pallet jack, roll it down, and then people can help themselves to the flats of tomatoes, as an example.”

More space in the new location will also allow the store to stock more product on the shelves, so that staff and volunteers don’t have to keep restocking shelves while customers shop.

And parking will be free through parking tokens provided by the store.

Moving the store to The Town Centre will also provide extra space to add more refrigerators to the store, as there is not enough room for them in the Rosser Avenue location.

“Over the past year, we’ve been gifted other refrigerators and freezers that we’re keeping in storage that we’re going to pull out for this,” Robinson said. “We always knew we were going to move to a bigger space.”

While the store hasn’t seen more transactions, it is taking in more money in sales, he said, enabling the non-profit to move into a more expansive and more expensive space.

“So, no, it’s just about how we can continue to improve the customer experience for the people who are keeping this thing sustainable.”

He added that while the store won’t need to hire any new staff for the bigger location, they are always looking for more volunteers. Down the road, the store is also considering expanding its hours.

As it is, the expansion of the store is a win for the food rescue staff.

“It has exceeded my wildest dreams, for sure,” Robinson said.

The store is expected to transition from its current location to The Town Centre over the Easter weekend.

» gmortfield@brandonsun.com

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