Canada

Headline is misleading. This is a food bank that allows their clients to choose their own products and sets the product out like a grocery store.

Typically food banks will give clients a standard box of items but not everyone uses all of it. Allowing clients to pick their own items reduces waste and setting it up like a grocery store just makes sense.

Clients still need to register with the food bank and are restricted to $200 worth of items every two weeks.

Forget all the "not actually first" and "misleading headline" stuff. If we can do this on donations, probably mostly from people only a paycheque away from needing a food bank themselves, imagine what we could do with an actual social system funded by properly taxing wealth, high income, and corporations. We could turn that headline into something approaching reality.

Sorry but this model of foodbank was roughly over 70% the norm in most places prior to covid because it cuts down on wasted food (i.e. the hamper box system distributes a lot of food people either don't, or won't eat). Post-covid most banks had to go back to the hamper model to limit exposure to the sorting and storage areas.

I've both volunteered and worked at, as well as drawn from, several food banks. Idk if sask is just decades behind or what's going on with this article but, no.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Imagine walking into a store, picking out all your groceries for the week and not having to worry about facing an expensive bill at the checkout.

The hub will give those who rely on the food bank autonomy over what they want to take home to feed their families, rather than being handed standardized items.

"None of us fit in a box, but that's what we give our clients today," said Regina Food Bank vice-president David Froh.

White first reached out to the food bank for help five years ago, after a shoulder injury left him unable to work.

Other food banks in Canada have piloted the choice model on a smaller scale, with limited hours and capacity.

Froh said their two largest growing demographics are people who work full time — now 18 per cent of food bank clients in the city — and new Canadians.

The original article contains 890 words, the summary contains 146 words. Saved 84%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

How about we just feed everyone for free instead? This is 100% possible right now in Canada. Canadian Food waste alone could feed every single person in Canada for 5 months. About 4.82 million tonnes.

Gross right?

Next in line add Water, Shelter, Education, and Medical. Fully covered for every Canadian citizen and no exceptions.

Again this is 100% possible tomorrow without changing anything other than where tax money ends up and I am done pretending like all of the scraps Canadians are given for our money are worth what our "Leaders" get in their own pockets.

I wonder if letting people pick their own items really reduces waste more than the hamper system? What happens to items left on the shelf that no one takes? That's probably the same stuff that would be ignored from a hamper? I'm admittedly pretty ignorant of food banks generally, but I would think that the hamper system would be trying to encourage people to eat whatever they get, to both reduce waste by making sure all items get out there from the bank, and to ensure there's enough of everything coming in to go around evenly? I can see this maybe resulting in the better items going first, and a bunch of less desirable items always being left behind to rot. Does that tend to happen in this type of system or not?