Each summer, Grocery Heroes Day recognizes employees in grocery stores and other parts of the food supply chain for the work they do feeding families. At Food Banks Canada, we’re pleased to highlight their crucial contributions to food banking.
Food Banks Canada collaborates with partners at every stage and sector in the food supply chain, including agriculture, agri-processing, food manufacturing, storage, transportation and retail.
These partnerships can take many forms: some companies and associations make regular, planned product donations, while others make ad-hoc contributions such as product overruns, production errors and close-to-code items. Some offer in-kind services, make financial donations, and/or fundraise for Food Banks Canada through employee and customer engagement programs or cause-marketing and promotional product campaigns. In every case, we work to create shared value with our partners.
In addition to these possibilities, grocery sellers have a unique opportunity: through national-level partnerships with retail corporations, Food Banks Canada matches individual grocery stores with nearby food banks to divert surplus food. Last year, these arrangements collectively recovered around 19.1 million pounds of food from hundreds of store locations from coast to coast to coast. That translates to millions of nourishing meals.
A Win-Win
The impact is substantial for both the participating stores and the matched food banks. For their part, grocers reduce food waste and manage their surplus inventory in a safe and reliable way, ensuring it reaches the people who need it the most. And perhaps unsurprisingly, a broad academic and industry research base indicates that meaningful charitable partnerships tend to boost brands, employee retention and customer loyalty.