Tuesday night, volunteers and staff moved all the food from the Loaves & Fishes Community Foodbank’s old warehouse to its new warehouse. “I would be guessing that we’re moving probably $200,000 worth of food,” said Peter Sinclair, executive director of Loaves & Fishes. It took approximately eight to 10 truckloads to move all the food in just one day, which meant long hours for some, including director of operations Alex Counsell, who started his regular shift at 8:30 a.m. “And now I’m moving crew till who knows how long it takes, nine, 10, 11 p.m.,” Counsell added. They needed to work long hours so food distribution was not impacted, not even for a day. “All our free food markets will be open. Volunteers will be showing up at the Tom Harris Regional Food Centre to sort food tomorrow.” The 24,000-square-foot new purpose-built warehouse on East Wellington Road is more than four times the size of the old warehouse on Fry Street. “I remember standing in this loading bay 10 years ago, and we thought we would never outgrow this space, but here we are,” Sinclair said. Loaves & Fishes adds that food security is in high demand, but what’s driving the need for the larger facility is its successful food recovery program, which has outgrown the old warehouse. “There’s always been a huge amount of food waste out there and we have just aggressively gone after it,” Sinclair said. “As we’ve gotten that food, we’ve needed to have the capacity in terms of facilities and trucks to handle it.” As they settle into their new surroundings, the foodbank is asking the public for patience as they adjust to their new operation. “We’ve got a plan, but sometimes when you implement a plan you learn things and you’ve got to tweak it a bit. So we just ask for people’s flexibility,” Sinclair said. A grand opening and open houses for the new warehouse are expected to take place in October.
