The Salvation Army's food bank in French Creek, B.C., is giving clients better, healthier options thanks to a new commercial cooler and a partnership with Thrifty Foods. Instead of composting fresh produce and perishable items such as bread, the grocery store now sends these items to the Army.

A partnership with Thrifty Foods yields plentiful results

Trina Jiggins, food bank co-ordinator, originally got the idea for the food reclamation program after hearing about a similar program elsewhere on Vancouver Island. However, when the food bank investigated obtaining a commercial cooler, they were given a quote of $25,000.

“The unique part of our program is that we built our own 20-by-12-foot cooler using a high-powered air conditioning unit and a coolbot device to regulate the temperature,” says Jiggins. “The one that we constructed, following the Health Board specifications, cost us under $5,000 and it is energy efficient.”

In the first eight months of the cooler's operation, The Salvation Army was able to repurpose nearly $175,000 of usable produce and dairy.