Through the chair, I want to start by expressing my appreciation for the opportunity to speak with you about the state of the work we are doing and how the instability we see globally impacts food security locally.
My name is Alex Boyd. I'm the CEO of Greener Village in Fredericton, New Brunswick.
Greener Village has been serving people living with food insecurity in Fredericton for over 40 years. We have witnessed over the course of the last 40 years an ever-expanding group of people in our community who are facing food insecurity and the inevitable hunger that comes when people have insufficient access to food. This hunger that food banks seek to satiate is damaging. It impacts our longevity, limits our potential, compromises our security and erodes our community cohesion. We have witnessed first-hand in just the last few years the deep impact global factors like pandemics, hyperinflation and war have on food insecurity factors at home. In the past five years alone, the number of people Greener Village is serving has increased by 135%. This is largely, if not overwhelmingly, driven by global factors.
It seems very clear from the lived experiences of agencies just like Greener Village, which is working directly with food-insecure people, that we can't overstate how difficult things become when we see global instability. This instability around the globe continues to impact the most the people who can influence it the least. It's why, as a country, we need to take a much more local approach to our food chain.
Buying local can be extremely difficult for people, especially for people facing food insecurity and the organizations, like Greener Village, that serve them. Local food is often in less processed forms, which is great for quality and health but more difficult for longevity and efficiency. Both individuals and agencies are often limited by access to cold storage to keep foods at their appropriate holding temperature for food safety and quality. Food banks have especially struggled as they seek to meet an ever-increasing demand, coupled with significant increases to the cost of each item provided to client families.
When you couple the challenges mentioned above with the uncertain access to resources when they're needed, both individuals and the agencies supporting them find themselves facing a very challenging question: Do I take the risk on local or play it safe with the convenience of shelf-stable, heavily processed foods?
Despite the convenience, we all know there are challenges involved with food that is grown on one continent and then shipped, processed or even sold on another continent. Not the least of these challenges is the cost, both fiscal and environmental, of the fuel and infrastructure needed to ensure that these supply chains continue to work.
We need to look towards investing in local infrastructure projects that make access to local food easier to handle and create more meaningful connections to our existing agriculture. By creating these connection points, we will give our agricultural sector a much needed boost to its customer base.
Unfortunately, food banks are not often seen as prime partners for local agriculture, and we continue to face infrastructure barriers to using fresh food products that may become available, especially on a large scale. Due to challenges within infrastructure, many food banks rely on heavily processed, shelf-stable products that are not typically from local sources and may not even be the most healthy.
While these barriers remain true, there is also a significant opportunity for local agriculture in partnership with food banks. Food Banks Canada's 2025 “Hunger Count” report noted a staggering 2.165 million visits to food banks each month. These visits reflect a massive volume of food that is being procured through food donations or with donated funds to food banks. What could and would our system look like if all of the donated funds that are purchasing food could be worked into the local agriculture system? Even if $25 of local products could be secured per visit, that would equate to over $50 million in spending every month. Instead of funds being used to ship products around the world in heavily processed formats, we would invest in the Canadian distribution of products that can be processed locally for families in need.
That's why Greener Village is nearing completion of a construction project to build our Thrive Perishable Food Rescue Centre. This new facility's purpose is very simple: saving viable fresh food from waste and investing in locally grown products. The centre will be able to receive and process fresh produce into freezer-stable products that will be distributed to food banks all throughout New Brunswick.
Greener Village and its partners, Feed NB and Food Banks Canada, are already creating partnerships with local producers to create healthy, local food that can be processed and distributed. This means higher-quality foods for the people I mentioned above, improving health and providing better nutrition so that people can perform better at work or school.
Our Thrive Perishable Food Rescue Centre is already a successful pilot for reimagining how food banks can reduce food waste and process local agricultural products for those most in need. Other jurisdictions are already deep in the planning stages for more food rescue centres across the country. Innovation like this is why any future food security strategy must include the food banking network as a partner. Creating infrastructure for meaningful connections to our local agriculture should remain an important priority and a method by which we can limit the instability we see globally and create a more food-secure country.
Thank you for inviting me. I look forward to your questions.
