Coquitlam’s first community kitchen will help local struggling families put nutritious, low-cost food on their dinner tables and in their refrigerators.
It will also help the city move closer toward becoming a zero food waste community.
Tuesday, Feb. 18, the Food Link Society officially opened the kitchen facility at 107-17 Fawcett Rd. that will allow volunteers and professional staff to transform imperfect vegetables and fruit, as well as other staples nearing their best before date, into an array of healthy meals, appetizers and snacks to be distributed to families in need, along with other items recovered from local grocery stores.
Food Link’s director, Igor Bjelac, said the kitchen is the next logical evolution of the society’s mission to help ease some of the challenges faced by many immigrants struggling to find their feet in a new country, while also reducing the amount of perfectly edible food that finds its way into landfills because the yogurt on the grocery store shelf is a day out from its best before date or a bunch of apples may have some bruises.
It’s a goal borne from the personal experience of five immigrants themselves who met in an English class and decided to join forces eight years ago to help make a difference in their new environs.
Since then, Food Link’s efforts have expanded to 11 communities and 29 distribution points across the Lower Mainland. In 2024, its 420 volunteers rescued a million kilograms of food and prevented 2.5 million kilograms of carbon emissions from food items ending up in landfills.
Cassie Neigum has seen some of those benefits play out first hand.
The Coquitlam middle school where she teaches — and asked not to be named — has expanded its number of families who receive assistance from the Food Link program from 32 to 52 in just the past year.
Neigum said ensuring parents have the means to provide their families with nutritious meals pays off in the classroom.
“You can’t teach kids if they’re hungry,” she said. “Kids can’t learn in class if they’re concerned about where their next meal is coming from.”
Bjelac said current geopolitical forces, like the threat of a trade war with the United States leading to higher prices for many foods and other items, almost certainly means more families will soon be struggling. Intercepting and repurposing or distributing food grocery stores no longer want to sell before it hits the dumpster can be part of the solution, he said.
“Food waste happens in such a huge scale,” Bjelac said. “It’s a good place to begin.”
Coquitlam Mayor Richard Stewart, who attended the opening, said Canada has a bit of a reputation for wasting perfectly edible food because it doesn’t meet aesthetic standards.
“We have to embrace this idea that we can be a zero food waste community,” Stewart said. “It can make a real difference.”
Retired Coquitlam restaurateur, Fred Soofi, who is on Food Link’s board of directors, said the new kitchen will also allow him to conduct workshops for local immigrant families on low-cost meal preparation using rescued ingredients.
“Making nutritious food at a low cost is important,” said Soofi, who recently retired from his longtime restaurant, Pasta Polo. “You just have to know how to cook it properly.”
Food Link’s efforts are supported by local, provincial and federal governments, the United Way, grocery chains and sponsors like Wesbuild and Team Leo, a real estate company. It also produces the Soul Bite line of Middle Eastern appetizers and snacks like vegan filo pastries, made with locally sourced ingredients and authentic spices then sold in delis and the frozen food sections of grocery stores across four provinces as well as a new take-out counter, also at 107-17 Fawcett Rd.
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