Second Harvest

About Second Harvest:

Founded in 1985, Second Harvest (SH) rescues and delivers fresh food to hungry people in Toronto. Second Harvest reports that 4m Canadians, including 1.4m children, struggle to access healthy food. However, across the food industry in Canada, 11.2m metric tons of unsold excess food goes to landfill, and Canadian households throw away on average $1,766 worth of food per year. Second Harvest works to rescue and deliver fresh, surplus food to feed people experiencing hunger. Second Harvest currently recovers food from 742 food donors and distributes it to 373 agencies that feed people. SH also sends food to school programs and local food banks. Through FoodRescue.ca, a new online platform, Second Harvest was able to provide nourishment to students at more than 60 schools in Toronto. 

Through its Food Rescue & Delivery program, Second Harvest gave out 12.3m pounds of food in F2018, 15% more than in F2017. Of this food, 94% was perishable. The program runs seven days a week and provides food to their network of over 373 social service agencies. The food distributed by Second Harvest served 330,190 in F2018.  

Feeding Our Future is an annual 8-week summer program, where Second Harvest serves free lunches and snacks to kids attending summer camps. Since 2005, Second Harvest has provided about 100,000 Feeding Our Future lunches to kids in Toronto. In F2018, the charity provided 40,000 lunches to feed 2,100 children. 

Harvest Kitchens is a training program for adults and youth who want to work in the food preparation industry. Program participants work under the supervision of food service professionals and the food they prepare is then delivered to Second Harvest’s food agency partners. 

Results and Impact:

Second Harvest reports that in F2018, as a result of their work, 58m pounds of greenhouse gases were averted. According to Second Harvest, this is the equivalent of removing 5,000 cars from the road for a year. In addition, Second Harvest reports that 10.7 billion litres of water were not wasted as a result of their work.  

Financial Review:

With total cash donations and special events fundraising of $10.1m and donated food worth $32m in F2018, Second Harvest is one of Canada’s 100 largest charities in terms of donations, making it a Major 100 charity. Administrative costs are 2% of revenues and fundraising costs are 15% of donations and special event revenue. For every dollar donated to the charity, 83 cents went towards its programs, which is within Ci’s reasonable range for overhead spending.

Funding reserves of $4.5m can cover one month of annual program costs, excluding the cost of donated food. 

This report is an update and has been sent to Second Harvest for review. Changes and edits may be forthcoming.

Updated on May 28, 2019 by Parker Thomlinson.