A new non-profit grocery store in Lower Lonsdale is turning potentially wasted food into healthy groceries for families in need, solving two big problems with one nicely packaged idea.
Quest Food Exchange opened at 167 East First St. in North Vancouver in late January and is already servicing more than 1,000 North Shore residents each month, offering discounted prices on perfectly good, healthy food that otherwise might have gone to waste.
Earlier this month the store held a grand opening celebration to show off the spacious market where clients, referred to Quest by various local health agencies, can browse products at their leisure and select whatever they want to buy. The goods, often surplus or mislabelled products, are donated to Quest by more than 200 local food suppliers.
The Lower Lonsdale location is the fifth Quest market to open, following two in Vancouver and one each in Surrey and New Westminster. The North Shore has a reputation as an affluent community, leading many to incorrectly assume that poverty isn’t a problem.
“It’s a funny thing – a few years ago when we were looking at different locations in the Lower Mainland, the first reaction we got was ‘why North Vancouver?’” says Surindra Sugrim, community development supervisor for Quest Food Exchange, adding that when they did a market analysis they realized that there was a lot of need here. “Poverty is very hidden in North Vancouver. There’s this notion that North Van is a rich area. I grew up in North Van, and I never quite understood that because there are a lot of low-income neighbourhoods. … We have a lot of working-poor families. (People) are working and they still can’t afford to feed their families.”
That’s where Quest comes in. Their No. 1 mandate is to “reduce hunger with dignity,” and they are hard at work on that task at their North Vancouver location.
Clients are referred to Quest by organizations such as North Shore Neighbourhood House, Lookout Emergency Society, Vancouver Coastal Health and the Harvest Project. It’s set up like any other grocery store – smaller than a supermarket but bigger than a corner store – but the bill at the end of the trip will be much less than the price a shopper would pay at a for-profit grocery store.
Quest works with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to ensure their food is healthy and safe. The store uses a grocery market model, so clients are free to choose the products that are best for them.
“The person gets to choose what they want based on their own dietary needs,” says Sugrim. “The overwhelming feedback that we receive from clients, what they like about Quest, is the dignity aspect. ... It’s empowering for that person to have that decision in terms of what they want to eat, and not make someone feel that because they are living in poverty they can’t choose what goes into their body.”
The Quest model has received attention from organizations around the world, says Sugrim.
For more information on Quest go to questoutreach.org. More resources for those in need are listed on the provincial government’s website bc211.ca.
