Cash donations go further at Sudbury food bank

The Sudbury Food Bank is looking to get more bang for its buck.

Its new, expansive warehouse has more space in which to store food, but filling that space has the organization putting more of an emphasis on fundraising for money rather than food.

The food banks treasurer stands in the middle of a warehouse full of food much of it bought by the food bank from companies that no longer need it, like grocery stores that can no longer make use of canned foods and have to pay tipping fees to throw them out.

"In some cases its simply an excess of food," Greg Fontaine said.

"In some cases ... the food is good but the packaging is expired for whatever reason."

The food is free for the food bank if they pay to have it shipped. Its an opportunity the food bank couldn't take advantage of in its old building because of limited space and means more food at less cost.

"Rather than buying a dollar worth of food and donating ... if that dollar was donated we could actually buy six dollars worth of food," Fontaine said.

But it's hard to get people to donate at all, he said. And when they do, it's hard to ask them to give cash instead of food.

"When people think of the food bank they think of non-perishable food items."

While the food bank welcomes any donation from the public, donors should consider what type of foods they are donating, Fontaine added.

"If people are mindful of [being] in a similar position, if they were looking at their pantry and had to cook something for themselves, do they want to donate the same thing that they would want to eat?

Fontaine said the food bank is looking at eventually accepting perishable food items as donations

He estimated 14,000 people access the food banks services each month.