Cedar Hill Urban Food Farmers

CHUFF – Garden Tour & Plant Giveaway

April 29, 2026 By Karen Dearborn

The Cedar Hill Urban Food Farmers (CHUFF) is hosting a Food Grower’s Garden Tour & Plant Giveaway.

Each CHUFF member has grown a flat or pack of extra vegetable seedlings. The goal is to invite our neighbours and the general public to come tour a member’s beautifully productive garden and and takeaway a few vegetable starts or seeds to try growing food in their own backyard / front porch / balcony.

It’s Not Too Late to Plant!

Last year’s event was so much fun. Lots of folks came. Dozens, maybe hundreds of veggie starts were given away – tomatoes, peas, squash, celery, cilantro, peppers, herbs, plus seeds, and flowers, and plant divisions in pots.

People are making the connection between affordability, food security, climate catastrophe, and growing one’s own food. CHUFF, in this once a year fun event, gives it a great big happy nudge in our own neighbourhood.

Date: Saturday, May 23, 2026

Time: 10am to 2pm

Place: Little Wicklow Valley Farm at 3267 Wicklow Street

WHAT’S CHUFF – 2025 Year in Review

March 25, 2026 By haddon.susan

2025 marked the 4th year of this kindly community of food growing friends in our Quadra Cedar Hill neighbourhood. CHUFF – the Cedar Hill Urban Food Farmers – sprouted April 2022 as an initiative of our Community Association’s Climate Action group. In Saanich, food and our food systems are the third greatest contributor to carbon emissions after transportation and buildings. Food waste plays a significant role. CHUFF’s goal is to encourage our neighbours to grow more food, consume more local foods, eat more of what’s in season, and prevent wasting food. Luckily for us, on southern Vancouver Island we can grow and purchase good, locally grown food year round and this contributes to a climate solution. CHUFF members gather most months of the year on Sunday mornings. Here are some of what CHUFF offered in its 4th year of operation. Curious about what’s coming in 2026? New Quadra Cedar Hill members are always welcome! Get in touch with an email to qchca.chuff@gmail.com

January 2025

Extending the variety of nutritious foods we grow in winter was our goal at this evening workshop on How to Grow Microgreens and Sprouts led by the Compost Education Centre’s delightful Kayla. Here we are gathered in CEC’s warm ‘n cosy straw bale learning centre. Participant comments: Great workshop. Really enjoyed it. I learned lots. Will definitely try growing sprouts. Workshop was good. I'm motivated now! Kayla was lovely. Great to see CHUFF friends again.

If you are new to food growing, we heartily recommend taking one of the Compost Education Centre’s many workshops. Or, join CHUFF!

March 2025

CHUFF-ians braved a downpour for our annual Seed Swap and tour of our host’s garden.

Lisa was looking for advice on how to maximize production in a backyard which is semi-shaded by Garry Oaks. Getting into each other’s gardens to share members’ years of experience, in differing grow situations, is one of the benefits that keeps CHUFF growers engaged.

Lisa’s comment on the day: I feel very fortunate to have had so many lovely folks who love to grow food come to our garden.

May 2025

Late in May CHUFF hosted its first ever, super successful Garden Tour & Plant Giveaway. This event was open to the public! Dubbed ‘It’s Not Too Late to Plant’, the tour and veggie starts giveaway attracted over 50 Quadra Cedar Hill neighbours. Karen’s Wicklow Village Plant & Seed stand overflowed with free vegetable starts and seeds, and even some native pollinators. All thanks to CHUFF members who started way back in March seeding dozens and dozens and dozens of extra tomatoes, peas, celery, zucchini and much more – all for the giveaway.

One lovely story comes from Marian who brought her granddaughter who was visiting from out of town. The youngster took home a cucumber seedling in a 4 inch pot, her first experience with trying to grow food. Later that summer Marian shared this photo of her very proud granddaughter with her Gigantic Cuke. Wow! Congratulations to this new generation food grower.

Watch for CHUFF’s 2nd annual public Garden Tour & Giveaway coming late May 2026.

June 2025

Members returned to Jeannette and Gavin’s newly renovated food, herb, and fruit garden to learn what they’d decided to change things up after many years growing in the same location, and why. A family of scientists who are always experimenting, these folks seek maximum calories for a vegetarian diet and have much knowledge to share.

August 2025

Each late summer or early autumn CHUFF hosts Taste Testing Our Garden’s Best. Members bring their favorite ‘fruits of the season’ for everyone to taste-test. There is usually a plethora of tomato varieties for instance, and when a particular favorite is found the grower will usually save seeds for others to plant next year. Folks share preserved foods too – we dipped into fig chutney with goat cheese, a new pesto recipe, and even a lightly-smoked tomato sauce.Eric’s biggest ever garlic was the 2025 show stopper with a circumference of 16.5cm and weighing in at 870 grams. Wow!

October 2025

October marks our annual Harvest Potluck and member garden tour. Not all CHUFF members have expansive backyards and folks were impressed by how much food Delma grows in pots on a sunny south facing balcony.

As for the potluck, urban farmers know not only how to grow good food but also how to cook it! What better dish to celebrate another great growing season than strawberry rhubarb pie?

November 2025

CHUFF closed out the 2025 season with a member survey, asking What folks want to learn and share, next year? This reflecting CHUFF’s credo: our activities will reflect what engenders the interest of members.

Highlights to watch for in 2026 include: a Beginner’s Garden “Advice Please” tour; a farm visit featuring native pollinator plants & indigenous medicinals; the ever-popular Taste-Testing, Harvest Potluck, and member Seed Swap. In the Let’s Investigate category CHUFF members hope to also tour a nearby allotment garden, potentially take a group field trip to Saltspring for its fabulous Apple Fest, learn more from each other about growing avocados, yams, ginger and mushrooms, learn how to better utilizing the winter greenhouse, and up folks’ success with winter brassicas.

We encourage our QCH Community Association neighbours to watch for CHUFF’s 2 nd annual, open to the public It’s Not Too Late to Plant Garden Tour & Veggie Starts Giveaway, in late May.

‘Til then, as Sarah’s T-shirt advises, we hope you can:
Romaine Calm 🌿Be Sage 🌿 Take Thyme 🌿Squash Fear 🌿 & Stay Peas-ful while growing your own good
food, and/or consuming locally grown foods to support our local farmers.

For more information – contact qchca.chuff@gmail.com

Diagnose your Soil – Before Planting

March 13, 2026 By Karen Dearborn

Important information from CHUFF (Cedar Hill Urban Food Farmers).

Check before you do your Spring planting.

The weeds in your garden beds aren’t random. Every species thriving right now is a soil report you didn’t ask for.

Pull them if you want. But read them first.

Also, your soil conditions may be a combo of problems.

If you’re interested in urban food farming find more information here.

International Year of the Woman Farmer 2026

November 28, 2025 By Karen Dearborn

December 4, 2025 sees the launch of the International Year of the Woman Farmer.

Learn about the essential roles women play across the globe in raising food. 2026 is also a year of action in support of initiatives to close gender gaps and improve women’s livelihoods.

Find out more at https://www.fao.org/woman-farmer-2026/en/

WHAT’S CHUFF ? – 2024 Year in Review

March 27, 2025 By haddon.susan

CHUFF sprouted April 2022 as an initiative of our community association’s Climate Action group. In Saanich, food and our food systems are the third greatest contributor to carbon emissions after transportation and buildings. Food waste plays a significant role. We all eat, and we each have the power to be part of the solution. CHUFF’s goal is to encourage our neighbours to grow more food, consume more local foods, eat more of what is in-season, and to stop wasting food. Luckily for us, on southern Vancouver Island we can grow and purchase good, locally-grown food year round. CHUFF members gather most months, on a Sunday morning. Here is some of what CHUFF offered in its third year, 2024. New members welcome

January 2024
CHUFFians greeted the new year and each other with our very own Social Seed Swap. Most seeds were saved from member’s own gardens, the intent being to share locally-successful and favorite varieties.

January / February 2024
A handful of able volunteers organized CHUFF’S 2 ND EAT LOCAL Winter Recipe Contest open this year to all Saanich residents. Contest rules required that 75% of ingredients be BC grown produce, and in-season. The contest attracted 55 fabulous recipes and was featured in the T-C by food columnist Eric Akis. 1 st place prize (by random draw) went to Saanich resident Nancy D’s delicious Hungarian Mushroom Soup. See all contest recipes here qchca.org/winter-veggie-recipes/

In April
Members gathered to troubleshoot a challenging, food-on-a-budget grow site. Ashlie’s backyard has a gigantic glacially-scoured rocky outcropping right in the middle of it. While her initial intent was to create habitat for pollinators she soon decided that that much work should produce people food too. Despite pests, pernicious weeds, too much heat, and zero soil she is creating a food forest with child-friendly play places throughout, a resilient garden for a working mom that won’t be too time-consuming or expensive to maintain.

May
Paige and Tommy of Fullmoon Farmstand on Maplewood opened their backyard to CHUFF members and the public for the community association’s Lower Your Carbon Footprint Neighbourhood Tour. Paige works with HAT (Habitat Acquisition Trust) and Tommy with Satin Flower Nursery and their garden exemplifies the benefits of biodiversity. As they say: We have tended to and expanded our garden on this rental property for the last 4 years. Here we produce 75% of the vegetables we consume in summer, plus enough to give away to family and friends and to sell at our farmstand. About half the backyard garden is devoted to vegetables; half the yard is lawn for the dogs and backyard hangouts, with the perimeters being native plants for pollinators and biodiversity. About 50 QCH neighbours took advantage of the all day tour. Thanks Paige & Tommy!

June
An early summer visit to Judy & Ian’s garden carved out of a blackberry thicket along the Galloping Goose Trail – surely ironic for food growers who describe themselves as aspirationally lazy gardeners!

Here the focus was strategies for maximum yield with minimum effort, benefits to co-growing with family members or neighbours whose garden plots are nearby but separate, and balancing living next to a wildlife sanctuary with the desire for a reasonably productive garden.

CHUFF-ians gloried in Judy’s garden art and re-named Ian the McGiver of Growers for his talent in fashioning tool solutions from found objects.

September
The highlight of 2024 was CHUFF’s tour to ALM Farm; Full Circle Seeds in Sooke! Enthralling … Inspiring … I had no idea what’s required to be a certified organic farm … I want to go back to volunteer … Mary-Alice is amazing! were some of the comments shared.

Buckwheat in full bloom, seeded mere weeks earlier as a green manure /cover crop following potato harvest.

Established 30-plus years ago, ALM Farm offered the South Island’s first organic CSA box program which continues today. Many of our region’s organic farmers got their start with Mary-Alice via ALM’s on-farm apprenticeship program. “Townies’ can find ALM produce at the Moss Street Market every Saturday.

November

Undaunted by October rain, CHUFF’s annual Harvest Potluck Lunch moved indoors a month later. Always a delicious social event, members bring a dish concocted from their own garden produce. A treat this year was taste testing Gregor’s sparkling plum cider! For dessert, the CHUFF pie-guys provided a choice of wild-foraged blueberry, or orchard apple pie!

Appreciating that one in every three bites of foods we eat is reliant on pollinators, after our Harvest Potluck lunch we toured the Community Association’s latest climate action – an in-progress, native plants for pollinators boulevard garden, Astoria Street at Willerton.

Quadra Cedar Hill Urban Food Farmers, or CHUFF, gathers on a Sunday morning most months in the growing seasons. Activities reflect what garners the support of our members. New members welcome, especially new-to-food growing families. Contact qchca.chuff@gmail.com

Eat Local Winter Veggie Recipe Winners

February 13, 2024 By haddon.susan

Thanks to everyone who took the time to enter CHUFF’s Eat Local Winter Veggie Recipe contest or even paused to consider the significance of eating locally-grown produce, in season. Our food system is responsible for 30% of carbon emissions globally and our daily food choices do make a difference!

Find all the recipes HERE

WINTER VEGGIE RECIPES

January 17, 2024 By haddon.susan

Be inspired – and Eat Local – and ENJOY!

All veggie recipes contain at least 75% local (BC grown) ingredients.

THANK YOU to all who entered, to all those that supported this contest in some way, to all who are viewing, considering and using these amazing recipes – and most of all, to all those who consider the impact that their food choices make on our only earth. YOU are making a difference!

CHUFF is a volunteer initiative of Quadra Cedar Hill Community Association’s Climate Action Group.
For more info on the wonderful work that CHUFF does and how you can get involved see: Cedar Hill Urban Food Farmers

Winter Veggie Contest Rules & Regs

January 15, 2024 By haddon.susan

EAT LOCAL – WINTER VEGGIE RECIPE CONTEST RULES

1. Who Is Eligible:

The contest is open to all individuals 19 years of age and older who live in the municipality of Saanich.

As much as we’d love to receive everyone’s Eat Local recipes, we’re a small volunteer contest crew. We encourage other climate action / food security groups to spread the word and host your own Eat Local contest. It’s fun!

CHUFF’S focus is to help reduce Saanich’s carbon and ecological footprint by encouraging our neighbours to reduce food waste, grow their own food, and eat locally year round. Why? Because our food systems contribute 30% of the world’s carbon, globally, and the best place to start reducing our climate impact is close to home.

2. What Is Eligible:

For the purposes of this contest, a “Veggie” dish is a hot or cold main dish, a side dish, or even a salad.

EACH ENTRY MUST INCLUDE:

recipe
1 or 2 original photographs of the prepared dish in .jpg, .jpeg or .png format
contact info including your name, street address (required to confirm Saanich residency), telephone number and email address.
Recipes will be posted on the QCHCA.org website, on CHUFF’s Facebook and Instagram throughout the 3 week contest. Only contestant’s first names will be released publicly with the recipe.

EACH RECIPE MUST GIVE:

number of servings
the ingredients and the quantity required (preferably by volume, e.g. cups/teaspoons)
brief, step-by-step directions
credit: recipes are to be attributed to their original source, if known. E.g. My Grandma Josie’s Favorite Veggie Casserole or Whitewater Cookbook 2021. Contestants are responsible for any infringement on third-party rights.
(optional) any notes or comments about your recipe, e.g. why this is your favourite dish. This is where you would explain the ingredients you noted with asterisks which were home grown or preserved (see below).

Check sample recipes at QCHCA.org for format.

3. What Ingredients are Eligible:

Recipe ingredients must be vegetarian (no meat; eggs and local cheeses, though having a higher carbon footprint than vegetables, are acceptable).

Ingredients must be 75% “local” (by volume), and available locally at this time of year. The 75% local requirement allows for 25% of ingredients to be non-local e.g. olive oil, lemon, grains, seeds, etc.

For the purpose of this Contest “local” means BC grown. If an ingredient is BC grown and preserved for winter use, e.g. green beans you grew or purchased locally in the summer and froze for winter use, or tomatoes that you grew and dried, it is deemed “local”. Please identify ingredients you grew yourself with an * asterisk and local ingredients you preserved for winter use with two ** asterisks. Go ahead, inspire us!

For the purposes of this Contest purchased greenhouse produce labelled as grown in BC is not allowable.

The Contest’s intent is to share recipes that have a low carbon and ecological footprint. Some produce labelled as BC Hot House is, in winter months, sourced from Mexico or the southern US. And, surprise,a Canadian-grown winter hothouse tomato is said to have six times the carbon footprint of imported Mexican tomatoes in hothouses heated with natural gas.

4. How to Send Your Recipe to Us:

By email: qchca.chuff@gmail.com, subject: Winter Veggie Recipe Contest Entry
Or, submit via the form provided: (LINK to come)

5. Deadline:

All entries must be received by 11:59 pm Feb 10, 2024.

6. Winners :

Winner will be chosen in a random draw, on or about Feb 12, 2024. Winners will be contacted within 7 days of the contest close date via the means of communication provided in your entry e.g. email or telephone.

Winning contestants will be identified by full name on the QCHCA/ CHUFF website, and ON CHUFF Facebook and Instagram. Entry constitutes permission to use the winner’s name, and recipe, for editorial and promotional purposes by QCHCA/CHUFF.

7. Entries:

You may enter as often as you wish but each entry must be sent as a separate entry via email, titled: Winter Veggie Recipe Contest Entry, or via the contest form.

Entries will not be acknowledged or returned. All entries become the property of QCHCA/CHUFF and may be edited, modified, adapted, published or otherwise used in any way without compensation. QCHCA/ CHUFF assumes no responsibility for entries that are lost, delayed, damaged, ineligible, or that cannot be processed for any reason.

8. Prizing:

Prizes must be accepted as awarded and are not redeemable for cash. Winners may be responsible for picking up prizes.

9. Legalese:

And now the legalese to protect our Contest partners – none of the participating sponsors, including QCHCA/CHUFF, their subsidiaries and affiliates, sponsors, prize donors, advisors or any of their representatives are responsible for or bear any liability whatsoever, in any way, attributable to any prize awarded, nor makes any warranties or representation in respect of any prize awarded except as specifically made by the participating sponsors in these Contest Rules, nor undertake any responsibility or liability for matters which may inhibit, reduce or prevent enjoyment of the prize.

Don’t delay! Get your entries in by 11:59 pm on February 10, 2024.

Send us your favourite, local ingredient Winter Veggie recipes today!

Watch for all the great Winter Veggie Recipes posted as they come in at QCHCA.org and on Facebook and Instagram.

Eat Local Winter Veggie Recipe Contest

January 14, 2024 By haddon.susan

ENTERING IS EASY!

BY EMAIL:
Send us:
1. your veggie recipe

2. photograph(s) of the prepared vegetable dish

3. your complete contact info

to QCHCA.CHUFF@gmail.com

BY GOOGLE DOC FORM: at this LINK

You can see all the recipe eligibility requirements HERE. Please do take a minute to read through them.

Dishes must be vegetarian and contain at least 75% local (BC grown) ingredients. Eligible recipes will be posted on Facebook, Instagram and here on the QCHCA website

See RECIPES HERE

CONTEST CLOSES: 11:59 pm, FEBRUARY 10, 2024

Enter as often as you like!

Contest is only open to Saanich residents. All contest rules and regs can be found HERE

Root Cellar Village Green Grocer

A Better Way to Nourish Livestock by Pippa Norman, The Tyee (with permission)

January 6, 2024 By haddon.susan

Reprinted with permission from The Tyee, January 5, 2024

A Better Way to Nourish Livestock

Loop Resource gathers what grocers are ready to toss out, providing a more ecological source of animal feed.

Pippa Norman YesterdayThe TyeePippa Norman is a journalist based in Vancouver, whose work has been nominated for a National Newspaper Award and a Canadian Association of Journalists award.

Two black sheep and a white and black goat feed on a pile of mostly green produce waste. — Dawson Creek’s Loop Resource diverts food waste from a network of 500 grocery stores to about 4,000 small farms across Canada to support the diets of local livestock.

[Editor’s note: This article runs in a new section of The Tyee called ‘What Works: The Business of a Healthy Bioregion,’ where you’ll find profiles of people creating the low-carbon, sustainable economy we need from Alaska to California. Find out more about this project and its funders.]

Kristy Sivorot’s cows will do anything for a raw potato.

When a startup began helping her bring loads of surplus food from her local grocer home to her farm in Sooke, B.C., Sivorot said, she imagined her small herd of dairy and beef cows would want an apple or something sweet.

Instead, she said, the raw potatoes she brings home

Kristy Sivorot’s cows will do anything for a raw potato.

Instead, she said, the raw potatoes she brings home from these pickups have become her cows’ favourite snack.

“They’ll fight over the potatoes. They’ll push each other around like ‘My potatoes; no, my potatoes,’” she said.

The pickups that Sivorot does every week at the Langford Save-On-Foods, about a 20-minute drive away, are organized by the food diversion company Loop Resource.

Founded in Dawson Creek, B.C., Loop Resource consists of a network of almost 500 grocery stores and about 4,000 small farms across Canada. Every week, these stores and farms work together to divert surplus food away from landfills where it would otherwise become waste contributing to planet-warming methane emissions. Instead, it feeds livestock whose meals may have otherwise been impacted by climate change. At about six years old, Loop has 41 staff and operates in every province and territory in Canada except Quebec, the Northwest Territories and Prince Edward Island.

Jaime White, founder of Loop Resource, said he started the company because he believes in knowing where his food comes from, minimizing waste and spending more time on his farm, with his family.

In an effort to increase the production of his own farm, White said, he decided to add pigs to the roster of sheep, goats and chickens he was already raising. Although the pigs were guaranteed to produce a lot of meat for the farm, White said he quickly came to terms with how much pigs eat.

“All of a sudden we were working extra jobs to feed the pigs,” he said.

“So… I went to the local grocery store and I was like, ‘Hey, I’d like to have the food you’re throwing away and I’ll feed my pigs with it.’”

Shockingly, the answer was no, White said. Unreliability, liability, brand damage, pests, and health and safety problems were among the issues White said an employee of his local store, Dawson Co-op, listed off to him when he asked, “Why not?”

A light-skinned man dressed in a black shirt and pants loads banana boxes onto pallets. — ‘We’re keeping food out of the garbage. We’re supporting local agriculture and sustainable food. And we’re doing it in a way that everybody wins. And that’s pretty fun,’ says Loop Resource founder Jaime White, shown transferring surplus food to be used for feeding livestock. Photo via Loop Resource.

Returning home empty-handed, White realized if he bought insurance for all of the problems mentioned by the grocery store and agreed to pay penalties if he didn’t keep his word, he could have a viable partnership, he said.

“I sat down with a pencil and made a few phone calls to some people I knew in insurance and contracting,” he said. “And I went back to [the co-op] and said, ‘Look, here’s what I’d like to do.’”

After that, White said, he began making regular rounds to pick up excess food from the Dawson Co-op and looped in a couple of his neighbouring farms too. Since then, Loop has only continued to grow.

Now, White’s clients include a tortoise rescue, emu farm, camel sanctuary and wolf-dog rescue.

“We’re keeping food out of the garbage. We’re supporting local agriculture and sustainable food. And we’re doing it in a way that everybody wins. And that’s pretty fun,” he said.

When surplus food ends up in the landfill, it produces methane — a potent greenhouse gas that scientists estimate is responsible for 30 per cent of observed global warming. In Canada, municipal landfills account for 23 per cent of methane emissions, according to the federal government.

Meanwhile, Canadian farmers’ winter feed stocks are in dire straits due to relentless drought conditions from the past few years. According to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, 81 per cent of the country’s agricultural lands were considered abnormally dry or in drought conditions at the end of November.

Since it began in 2017, Loop has diverted more than 266 million pounds of food away from landfills and towards livestock in need. White said he works with all sorts of farmers, from parents looking to spend more time at home with their kids, to retirees, to young farmers trying to save money on feed while starting out.

“I don’t think people realize how many small farmers there are in their community and how many people are trying to change our food security picture by investing in local production,” he said.

“Whether it’s local production for sale or just local production for them and their family, both of those things should be celebrated.”

Sivorot was an early adopter of Loop, joining in 2018. Now, she not only is a Loop farmer but also holds a couple of roles in the company itself, as a scheduler and lead for new farms.

Since becoming a Loop farm, Sivorot said, she’s been saving money on her feed bill and noticing a tangible difference in the health of her livestock. Where she lives, there’s a selenium deficiency.

“You can’t find it anywhere on the Island. It doesn’t happen in our food that we grow, or the hay we feed our animals,” she said. “So I would have to supplement that or give my cows selenium shots when they were little.”

Now, Sivorot’s cows no longer require those shots owing to their steady consumption of surplus produce that’s been grown in other places, where selenium is more readily available in the soil.

Cheaper feed costs for Sivorot also mean cheaper costs for her customers, she added.

“Because I don’t have to pay as much to feed my animals, I allow for a sliding scale for people so that you don’t have to pay as much as well,” she said.

“It’s kind of nice that I can pass that along to my consumers that buy farm stuff from me.”

A group of sheep and goats of various colours feed on a pile of produce waste. — At a Kelowna farm, chowing down on what the grocer would have thrown out. For every farmer who’s taking part in Loop, there’s often a handful of others who are on a wait-list for that same area of the province. Photo via Loop Resource.

Since Loop works with small farms producing food within their community or for themselves, White said, the company doesn’t introduce any risk into the commercial agriculture sector.

Plus, White said he makes a big effort to ensure the farmers he works with don’t have to worry about the quality of the food their animals are eating. Loop co-ordinates with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to ensure that any “risky” food items are segregated at the source, meaning they never come into contact with the feed farmers receive.

Additionally, White said every time Loop partners with a new store, it works to make sure any human-safe food is given to charities first, before farmers come to collect their loads.

If a farm ever gets too big for Loop’s program, he added, they simply remove themselves and another farmer takes their spot. Because for every farmer who’s taking part in Loop, White said, there’s often a handful of others who are on a wait-list for that same area.

“We work with many grocery stores, but a small fraction of the stores in Canada,” White said.

A light-skinned man wearing a patterned dark blue shirt and a light blue tie stands in front of a red wall with the words 'You're at home here' and 'CO-OP' painted in white. — Peter Lavandier, food store manager at Dawson Co-op, said the store saves an average of $25,000 per year in landfill fees by diverting food through Loop. Photo by Heather Kohler.

When a new store partners with Loop, White said, he asks them how many times they can have a pickup available every week. They multiply that number by two or three, and that’s the capacity of farms that can work with that particular store.

It takes the digestive systems of animals about two weeks to adjust to a new diet, White said. Therefore, farmers need to pick up loads no less than two weeks apart so their animals’ systems don’t readjust in between.

“If you don’t eat beans, and then you do, you have a mismatch of gut bacteria for a while and it’s uncomfortable,” he said. “In animals, it can be deadly.”

While maintaining the efficacy of the program, White said, the only solution to wait-lists is to enrol more stores in the program.

“We’re cheaper than garbage,” he said.

“Would you like to save money, support local farms and reduce your impact on the environment? If you can say yes to that, we’d love to show you how it works.”

In Dawson Creek, White’s local co-op continues to take part in the Loop Resource program to this day. Peter Lavandier, food store manager at Dawson Co-op, said the store saves an average of $25,000 per year in landfill fees by diverting food through Loop.

He said the store has three farmers who come every week for a pickup.

Similarly, Sweláps Market in Kamloops also has three pickups per week. The on-reserve grocery store opened in October and immediately began its partnership with Loop. General manager Kara Stokes said she worked with the program in a previous job and knew she wanted to carry this on in her new position.

“I like the flexibility of the program. They’re very easy to work with when it comes to product waste that would otherwise go in the landfill,” Stokes said.

Currently, Stokes said, the store typically has between eight and 12 banana boxes of food to give away per pickup, and they have three pickups per week.

Constantly on the search for more store partners, White said the grocers Loop currently works with are leading the charge and, in some cases, subsidizing other grocers to participate.

“We work with these guys every day; they bleed for their communities,” he said.

“They are cool people, who are really leading the charge in sustainable local agriculture…. This co-operation is what being Canadian is about. I think it’s what being human is about.”

This article is part of What Works: The Business of a Healthy Bioregion, a project of The Tyee and Salmon Nation / The Magic Canoe. Reprinted with permission.

https://thetyee.ca/WhatWorks/About/