How to Donate Food
Food Donation Guidelines
Thank you for considering a donation of food to Forgotten Harvest Canada. We are a perishable food rescue program that collects food from a variety of food donors and distributes that food in refrigerated trucks to social service agencies. For more information, please call Marilyn Beckham at 519-903-6617. For a printable version of this page, please click here.
Benefits of Food Donations:
- Convenient, no cost pick-ups
- Savings in storage, inventory, transportation and dumping costs
- Donation receipt showing weight by product category
- Marketing value as a good corporate citizen
- Helping feed people instead of the landfill!
Many reasons why companies choose to donate, including:
- Produce too big or small for supermarket standards
- Unharvested or imperfect produce
- Date Codes
- Overproduction
- Production flaws
- Mislabelled or unlabelled product – “brights” can be accepted with verification of ingredients
- Pack change or reformulations
- Cosmetic packaging damages
- Shipping errors
- Deliveries that are not accepted and cannot be returned cost-effectively
- Product samples or test market items
Food Criteria -
For a printable version of food criteria chart, please click here.
- In general, we accept perishable donations from commercial or licensed food facilities only.
- We accept dry or canned food; however to maximize use of our refrigerated trucks, we encourage donations of strictly non-perishable items to a social service agency or food drive.
Pickup Criteria - to make the best use of our trucks:
- We will gladly pick-up food donations of 50 pounds or more.
- Ideally, the food should be packed, ready and accessible for pick-up upon the driver’s arrival.
- Pick-up locations should be within Essex County.
- Alternate arrangements may be made for donations that do not meet the above criteria - please call us to inquire.
Pick-up Arrangements
- Call: 519-903-6617 – trucks are usually scheduled 2-3 days per week.
- E-mail: mbeckham@forgottenharvest.org
- Regularly scheduled pick-ups: If you know that you will have a sufficient quantity of food to donate on a regular basis, we can arrange daily, weekly or monthly pick-ups for our frequent donors.
- As needed pick-ups: Generally within 24 hours. Advance notice, if possible, is much appreciated.
- Please note: pick-up times cannot be guaranteed due to circumstances beyond our control such as unscheduled call-ins or traffic. In the event that we cannot make a pick-up, we will notify you to make alternate arrangements.