Founded in 1995, Food for Life Canada (FFL) is a food bank that focuses on redistributing fresh and nutritious foods to local agencies and residents in the region of Halton. FFL collects unsold and unused perishable food from grocery stores and restaurants. It aims to source three primary categories of food: produce, meat, and dairy, which tend to be the most expensive to buy. According to a recent study, about 60% of food produced in Canada goes to waste. In F2020, the charity provided food to 121 programs across Burlington, Oakville, Hamilton, Milton, Georgetown, and Acton. In F2020, Food for Life distributed $8.1m worth of donated food. FFL distributed 73,892 weekly food bags in F2020.

Food for Life operates local programs such as pop-up food banks and distribution onsite at churches and community centers. FFL’s 15 youth programs work in collaboration with agencies, including Boys and Girls Clubs and Frontline Outreach. It supports 1,612 youth each week who have reduced access to healthy food.

Food for Life Canada received monetary donations and government funding of $2.3m in F2020. It received donated food worth $8.9m in F2020. Administrative costs were 1% of total revenues and fundraising costs were 6% of donations. This resulted in overhead spending of 7%. For every dollar donated to the charity, 93 cents go towards its programs, which is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

Food for Life has total funding reserves of $891k. Excluding the cost of donated food, the food bank’s funding reserves can cover annual program costs for about 8 months.

Charity Intelligence has sent this update to Food for Life Canada for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated May 31, 2021, by Shira Wine.