MOOSE JAW — The Moose Jaw and District Food Bank was up to its eyeballs in potatoes recently, after receiving a massive donation from a Saskatoon-based organization that redirects surplus food to non-profits across Canada.
Second Harvest — the largest food-rescue organization in Canada — donated 14 pallets of potatoes weighing 13,500 kilograms (30,000 pounds) to the food bank on July 31, filling the warehouse with enough spuds to potentially make six million grams of French fries.
According to Second Harvest’s website, last year, it rescued and redistributed 87.1 million pounds of food worth $363 million from 7,500 food donors. That food provided 245,000 daily meals — or 89.4 million in total — for 6.5 million people through over 5,000 non-profit partners.
Also, this food rescue prevented 59.3 billion litres of water from going to waste.
The donation “was fantastic” and was greatly appreciated, even though staff and volunteers never realized what 13,500 kilograms of spuds would look like, Echo Stringer, the food bank’s warehouse supervisor, said on Aug. 28.
After receiving the delivery, staff and volunteers began breaking down the pallets and filling dozens of milk crates with the starchy, tuberous vegetables.
Furthermore, Stringer reached out to as many community businesses and groups as she could think of within a 160-kilometre radius — by phone and through social media — that would be willing to take the produce.
“And we had a lot of people come (and) get. It was good, but I knew I couldn’t get rid of them all,” Stringer said, noting she encouraged people to make French fries and offered recipes to turn the spuds into other delicious dishes.
After the businesses and non-profits took what they wanted, the food bank still had nine pallets of potatoes left, so Stringer began reaching out across the country to see if other food banks wanted to take some. Mark LeBlanc from Winnipeg responded and said he would take some.
“The rest is history. He sent a truck and we sent away nine pallets,” laughed Stringer. “So the Manitoba food banks will either be happy to see the nine pallets (or they’ll be overwhelmed too). So I was happy to see them go.”
She noted that she was thrilled when LeBlanc contacted her because it took a weight off her shoulders, while she had fewer dreams — nightmares? — about how she was going to distribute the thousands of spuds.
With a laugh, Stringer said, “I’ll be looking at a French fry differently now. It’s a lot of potatoes, but I’m glad that they’re able to help someone else.”
Continuing, the warehouse supervisor said she was thrilled that she could ship out the potatoes before they went bad. This is important to her since her role also focuses on reducing food waste as much as possible.
Another reason Stringer wanted to reduce the number of potatoes the food bank had is that the Better Together Food Drive occurs on Friday, Oct. 31, with the organization typically receiving dozens of pallets of food.
The food bank still has many potatoes available, so interested residents can come grab some — by the handful, crate or pallet — and staff will help load the vegetables into a vehicle or truck.
The Moose Jaw & District Food Bank is located at 270 Fairford Street West. For more information, visit MJFoodBank.org, email [email protected], or call 306-692-2911.
