WHAT'S THE

GOOD FOOD BOX ABOUT ?

The Good Food Box (GFB) program is a collective purchasing endeavour that buys large quantities of affordable garden fresh fruit and vegetables to be distributed at a very low cost to community drop-off points.

The Good Food Box program operates throughout the year with individuals placing orders for fruit and vegetables every two weeks. The boxes are sold at a set price and contain a variety of top quality fruit and vegetables and, according to the size selected, in a quantity that is sufficient to last one full week.

The Good Food Box is:

• A collective purchasing initiative dedicated to buying first quality, fresh and affordable produce.
• Lifestyle choice that lets people enjoy a healthy diet and develop better eating habits.
• A wide variety of in-season fruits and vegetables.
• Delivered to your neighbourhood every two weeks.
• A good example of great quality-price ratio.
• A program open to everyone, no membership required.
• A great way to promote buying local.
• A program open to everyone…no membership required!

• More than 115 drop-off points, spread out over 28 boroughs and cities related to Montreal, Laval and Roussillon/South shore
• 31,000 boxes prepared and distributed in 2011.
• 70,000 people benefitting the service.
• 150 volunteers each week throughout the network

Program

Objectives:

The primary objective of this program is to facilitate the physical, financial and educational access to top quality fresh fruit and vegetables. The Good Food Box program relies on the optimum cooperation of regional and local partners to promote the program and to serve drop-off points. The Good Food Box does not discriminate and is open to everyone; however it does give priority to clients who have limited access to healthy foods.

HISTORY

Based on the distribution model used by Moisson Montréal and Food Share Toronto, this collective
buying project is aimed at making top quality fresh fruit and vegetables available to the general public
and more particularly to those most vulnerable.

•  

  The idea was conceived following a conference held in March 2002, in which several neighbourhood community groups decided to create a program aimed at providing food security and access to healthy foods to the local population.

•  

  The Good Food Box program started in 2003 as a pilot project focused on food security and serving the NDG community.

•  

  It then expanded to become a regional program in 2007, and operations were transferred from the NDG food depot to Moisson Montréal.
  
  Since then, production has grown from about 300 boxes, in 2007, delivered every month to 2 boroughs to more than 1,900 boxes, in 2010, delivered every month to 28 boroughs.

•  

  The Good Food Box received Centraide'sAgnes-C. Higgins Award in 2010, which recognizes outstanding innovation on the part of an agency in meeting the social needs of the community.