It has been one year since the Food Flow project started in early 2013 with the strategic planning session with key stakeholders in the community food sector. The first year focused on the extensive community food needs assessment study that looked at opportunities and challenges in community food distribution and procurement. Now, after the (successful!) completion of the research phase, the project is moving into the second phase: pilot project development and implementation.

Research reports by both PARC and Toronto Public Health have offered a range of recommendations, from agency solutions to neighbourhood-level actions to system-wide interventions. We are currently focusing on developing three projects: 1)  Food Flow kitchen (community based food processing), 2) Access to Farm Surplus, and 3) Community Freezer, as well as a large partnership initiative, Online Portal project.

As a beginning of pilot project planning, we held a strategic planning session with Food Flow Advisory Group as well as a community planning and consultation meeting  with community agencies in West Central neighbourhoods.

Both sessions not only generated a number of creative ideas, but also highlighted challenges and opportunities that need to be integrated into pilot project development.

Based on the inputs and feedback from these sessions, the Food Flow project team is working on project development planning and fundraising. We will keep project updates on this website as well as monthly newsletters. If you have not signed up for the newsletter, please do so from here!