Cranbrook Food Recovery

04/08/2026

❤️ Looking after each other is what community is all about.

With wildfire activity, evacuation alerts and orders affecting communities around us, we're reminded how important it is to support one another.

Our freezer is stocked with ready-to-heat meals for anyone who could use one—whether you're displaced, lending a hand to family or neighbours, juggling a busy week and added stress, or simply in need of a little extra support.

This week's menu:
🥣 Ginger Beef
🍲 Sausage & Barley Split Pea Soup
🍔 Sloppy Joes with Texas Toast

Nourishing meals, made with care and shared with our community. If you know someone who could benefit from a meal, please let them know we're here. Donations accepted but not expected.

📍 Pickup: Community Connections 209A 16th Ave N
🕘 Hours: Tuesday 2-4pm and Wednesday 6-8pm.

Please share this post so more people know support is available. Together, we'll continue looking after one another—one meal at a time. 💚

31/07/2026

🥒 Zucchini Mania in Cranbrook! 🥒

We know there are a LOT of zucchinis making their way around town right now — and we love it! A big thank you to the Cranbrook Food Bank Cranbrook Food Bank and all the local gardeners for sharing the harvest with us. 💚

We’ve been busy over here — slicing, cooking, and dehydrating zucchini so we can enjoy this garden treasure later in the year. (Future us will definitely thank us! 🙌)

Now we want to know… what did YOU make? 👀

📸 Share your zucchini creations, favourite recipes, and the “I had way too many zucchinis so I tried this…” experiments!

🥒 Zucchini bread?
🥒 Fritters?
🥒 Soup?
🥒 Pickles?
🥒 A secret family recipe?

Let’s turn Cranbrook’s zucchini abundance into inspiration (and maybe help a few more zucchinis find their purpose 😆).

31/07/2026

🌞 Happy Summer from the School Meal Program! 🌞

As we enjoy the sunshine and a well-deserved summer break, we're taking a moment to reflect on an incredible school year.

Thanks to the support of our partners, volunteers, donors, schools, and community, our Pay-What-You-Can Hot Lunch Program served 7,099 nutritious meals to students at four Cranbrook schools this past school year.

Every meal represents more than just food—it represents care, connection, and the belief that every child needs a healthy lunch.

💚 Together, we're building a stronger, healthier community—one meal at a time.

24/07/2026

Help us craft an exclusively-Kootenays food box. We want to share our hyper-local favourites with as many people as possible.

💡 Here's the idea: you tell us right now what you would want to see in this box, how much you're hoping to spend and a few other details. We won't sell your info or sign you up for anything. This is just a survey! Zero cost to you or us.

⏭️Next: Watch for the launch announcement right here on our page.

🥧 October-December: Get your super-duper local ingredients for your fall and holiday cooking needs delivered to you. You can expect to at least see some Cranbrook Urban Farm lettuce in there!

🥬 Then: If the response is good, maybe we'll keep this going! Our non-profit, Community Connections, runs sooo many programs (more than just food!), helping thousands of local families, seniors and other vulnerable people. Projects like this help us fund our work in Cranbrook and the Southeast Kootenays. Wouldn't it be cool if you could be part of that impact, just by cooking and eating?

10/07/2026

Cranbrook! We are looking to launch some local food boxes this October. There are so many questions you might have about this, and we can't even answer them yet... because we want to hear from you first!

Complete this short survey to tell us how much you're looking to spend, what kinds of things you'd like to see, and how likely you'd be to purchase. Link: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QD9W322

What we do know is the items will be locally-sourced and appropriately priced. Revenue from box sales will come right back to supporting our "Good Food" work in the Southeast Kootenays.

26/06/2026

This summer, we’re lucky to have a creative, curious, and hardworking group of students supporting projects across Community Connections and Cranbrook Urban Farm.

From hydroponics and food recovery to design, social media, farming, events, and community programs, they each bring their own skills, interests, and energy to the work.

💚 Serafina, biotech student at COTR, is working at Cranbrook Urban Farm, learning about hydroponics.

💚 Skye has a passion for sports media, videography and photography, and is helping our Public Produce Garden this summer with events promotion and planning, and helping with Cranbrook Food Recovery.

💚 Seeley is a business student who loves design and bringing ideas to live, helping the Public Produce Garden and Cranbrook Food Recovery.

💚 Katelin is an Education Program student at COTR, working in the Public Produce Garden this summer. She loves gardening and dogs.

We’re grateful to have them learning, creating, and contributing with us this season!

22/04/2026

For Earth Day and Volunteer week we crunched some numbers!

In 2025, together we made a real impact in Cranbrook.

We diverted 139,062 kg of food from local grocery stores, farms and bakeries—food that would have otherwise gone to waste.

Of that:
• 28% went to farms, supporting animal feed and soil health
• 72% went directly to people—through programs, and to individuals and families across Cranbrook and the surrounding area

This is what community looks like: less waste, more connection, and more people fed.
Thank you to our partners, volunteers, and everyone helping make this happen. 💚

30/03/2026

Growing your own food is one of the best ways to build food security in our community.

Saving seeds takes it even further—helping preserve local crops and ensuring we can keep growing for years to come. 🌾

Small actions, big impact. Let’s grow and share together. 💚

Saving seeds from your own garden saves you money and helps you grow plants more suited to your home environment! Join us for a workshop all about saving seeds including how to plan your garden to avoid or encourage cross-pollination, how to select the best seeds for planting and basics about botany.

- free workshop
- free work book
- free seeds

Saturday, April 18 from 10 a.m. to 12 Noon.

Register by calling the Cranbrook Public Library at 250-426-4063. Cranbrook Public Library

23/02/2026

So you want to know more about our bin washing?

It’s a three-step process to keep them squeaky clean and food-safe every single time:

1. Wash with hot, soapy water
2. Sanitize thoroughly
3. Air dry

Every food bin is washed and sanitized after every single use, no shortcuts. It takes forever, but it’s 100% worth it to prevent cross-contamination and keep recovered food safe for our community.

Food recovery isn’t just about saving food, it’s about handling it with care every step of the way.

20/02/2026

Food recovery isn’t just about saving food — it’s about doing it safely. 🥕❄️

Here’s how we make sure the food we recover is safe, respected, and handled with care every step of the way:

• We work closely with grocery stores, clearly separating what’s fit for human consumption and what goes straight to farms — then our volunteers do a second careful sort
• We maintain the cold chain at all times. Food goes straight into coolers (dairy, deli, produce, bakery) or freezers (meat, frozen items, bakery) until program pickup
• Freezer and cooler temperatures are checked and logged daily
• Every recovery shift has a staff member or volunteer with Food Safe Level 1 overseeing safe handling practices
• All food bins are washed and sanitized every single use — it takes forever 😅 but it’s 100% worth it to prevent cross-contamination
• And our golden rule: when in doubt, we throw it out

Food recovery = care, accountability, and a whole lot of love for our community 💚
Because rescued food deserves the same respect as any other food.