Sources Food Hub is back for a third year with its Community Harvest program, also known as gleaning. Gleaning is the harvesting of…
Sources Food Hub
Our Services
The Sources Regional Food Hub provides education on food waste reduction, and opportunities for rescuing and redistributing food to our community.
The Hub enables food businesses, farms and residents to rescue unsaleable food and redirect it to address community food insecurity while also reducing the significant greenhouse gas emissions otherwise caused by food waste.
With funding from the Walmart Foundation and United Way of the Lower Mainland, the Hub coordinates three projects:
- Rescuing food from processors and retailers to redistribute to organizations serving marginalized families and individuals in Surrey
- Organizing volunteers to harvest and redistribute fruit and produce from farms and backyards, also known as gleaning
- Offering food waste education to the public and to members of the food business community
Since June 2019, we have rescued and redistributed the equivalent of almost 541,500 meals in Surrey.
That is worth the food dollar value of $1,587,701.81of perfectly good food!
- Food Rescue & Redistribution
In Canada, about 7.3 million metric tonnes of edible food is wasted each year by producers, food processors, distributors and retailers. The primary work of the Sources Food Hub is to rescue and redistribute this good food that would otherwise go to waste. It maintains an ever-growing network of retail, processor and farm food-donors, whose unsaleable food is redirected to organizations in Surrey. This work addresses two major issues at once; food insecurity in our community and the serious greenhouse gas emissions that result from wasted food.
The Sources Food Hub has developed a handbook to help other new food rescue programs navigate the development stage. Access the handbook for a limited time, here:
Download the Food Waste Redistribution Handbook
Since June 2019, the Sources Food Hub has rescued and redistributed 408,663 kgs of food – this is the equivalent of almost 452,000 meals, or enough to feed 412 people three square meals a day, every month, for a full YEAR!
The Food Hub continues to grow. Its impact is limited only by the capacity of its infrastructure and volunteer force. Get in touch to talk about volunteering, donating food or contributing your resources such as warehouse facilities or refrigerated transportation, to grow the capacity of the program.
Contact information:
For more information about food redistribution, contact Wylie Barker, Logistics Coordinator:
Phone number: 604-318-5794
Email address: wbarker@sourcesbc.ca
- Community Harvest Program
Sometimes good food goes to waste in our community simply because it isn’t harvested – whether in farmers’ fields or on backyard fruit trees. Harvesting this produce is known as gleaning. The Sources Food Hub offers its Community Harvest Gleaning Services through a team of dedicated volunteers. Along with our partner organizations, landowners and volunteers can also keep a share of the fresh, healthy harvest.
Currently our Community Harvest program is modified to ensure proper safety precautions due to COVID-19. This includes limiting the group sizes to a maximum of five, sanitizing all equipment before and after harvest, providing PPE to all volunteers and conducting a safety briefing prior to each harvest.
To register your garden or other crops, please fill out this form:
New volunteers who enjoy active outdoor work in support of their community – and who appreciate an abundance of fresh produce – are always welcome.
Become a Community Harvest volunteer:
Contact information:
Phone number: 604-596-0973
Email address: foodhub@sourcesbc.ca
- Food Waste Education
Each Canadian household wastes nearly $100 of the food they buy each month. In fact, if you count producers, processors, distributors, retailers, restaurants and those households, we waste so much edible food each year that for Surrey’s population alone it would fill a full-size cargo ship to capacity.
That is why we each have a role to play in addressing the problem of food waste. Food Hub staff are available to attend or host events and to give presentations on the reduction of waste throughout the food system with content customized for audiences ranging from elementary students to food business managers.
Find out more about food waste today through the National Zero Waste Council’s campaign, Love Food Hate Waste
CONTACT INFORMATION:
For more information, please contact Patricia Lee:
Phone: 604-262-5426
Email: plee@sourcesbc.ca
CONTACT INFORMATION
Tel: 604-542-7647
Email: foodhub@sourcesbc.ca
Mailing Address:
Sources Community Resources Society
#206 – 5529 192 St
Surrey BC V3S 8E5
Thank You
This program is generously funded by the Walmart Foundation and United Way of the Lower Mainland
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