Donations of U.S. fruits and vegetables are pouring in to Nanaimo’s Loaves and Fishes food bank from Island grocery stores that are unable to sell them, even at reduced prices.
Dan Van Domsellar works in the food bank’s food recovery program, and told CHEK News he has never seen anything like it before.
“It’s everything. Mushrooms, peppers, kiwis, lots of oranges, lots of stuff coming from California,” said Dan Van Domseller.
“We’re seeing an increase in what we’re getting, as well it’s mainly American produce.”
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Wednesday, food bank volunteer Don Moslin, sorted through what could be saved of it to feed the 10,000 clients the food bank serves each month. The Nanaimo retiree told CHEK News that he felt proud, seeing firsthand how many Islanders are avoiding buying American, since the start of the trade war.
“It’s definitely unified Canada, and brought us all together. We’re all on the same page on how we are going to deal with this moving forward,” said Moslin.
“It’s telling me people are buying local, or at least made in B.C,” said Van Domseller.
According to Peter Sinclair, the executive director of Loaves & Fishes, the large windfall of fresh American produce may have a best before date though.
Since Island grocery stores are expected to reduce their orders for American products due to changing customer demand, or like Victoria’s Urban Grocer has, attempt to cut out American produce altogether.
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“The supply chains are very tight, and as consumers change as they have done with this tariff war, we weren’t surprised at all to see more American produce coming in,” said Sinclair.
According to Sinclair, at the height of the donations up to 500 kilograms more of American produce was coming into the food bank each day. That amount is beginning to level off, but Sinclair said it is all going quickly to people who need it.
“It’s good to see the food not going to waste,” said Moslin.
“Our system works very quickly. So we’re turning food usually within 24 hours, and so when we see an increase in produce coming in, we respond immediately and get that food right back out,” said Sinclair.
Bringing one silver lining to the tariff war, as Canadians put their money where their patriotism is, and put Canada first in their carts.
