The BC Centre for Disease Control is trying to keep food banks healthy.
“People don’t have access to enough nutritious food to meet their needs, or they don’t have access to a dignified process.”
They’ve released new guidelines for residents and businesses outlining appropriate and inappropriate items to donate to food banks.
The guidelines also aim to simplify the donation process for businesses according to Karen Rideout with the Centre for Disease Control.
“We also found there’s a lot of good healthy food being wasted, particularly by the food industry. Through a consultation we did with them, we realized there’s a lot of foods that are fine to be donated but were being wasted because of logistics or other issues they were having.”
As a result, they’re trying to simplify the donation process and tap into food bank resources, like average businesses.
“There is a lot of food that’s wasted by groceries or restaurants, for a variety of reasons,” adds Rideout. “One of the things we’ve really tried to tackle in these guidelines is to help with the logistics of donating a lot of food that is currently going in the trash.”
She says when people don’t have access to enough nutritious foods, it can make them more vulnerable to chronic disease and mental health problems.