Greater Vancouver Food Bank – Best-Before Date Inventory

 

 

 

 

 

Project Summary

Title: Best-Before Dates. Dignity and Trust.

To document and analyse best-before dates (BBD) via established food categories in the Greater Vancouver Food Bank’s non-perishable inventory using the predetermined sample size that has been established for monthly nutrition analysis.

Organization Information

Name

Greater Vancouver Food Bank

Mission + Vision

VISION: Accessible, healthy, sustainable food for all.

MISSION: To create empowering environments that provide and promote acess to healthy food education and training.

Guiding Principles + Values

VALUES: OUR ASPIRATIONS & ACTIONS

  • Accountability: We do what we say and take responsibility for our work and actions. We evaluate our results and our behaviours.
  • Collaboration: We work together for mutual and collective success. We listen and share.
  • Justice: We believe in an equal voice for all. We speak up and out to make a difference.
  • Respect: We value people and our environment. We speak to and treat each other with dignity.
  • Trust: We start from a place of openness. We build lasting relationships.

Primary Contact

  • Contact Person(s): Erin Nichols
  • Email: erinn@foodbank.bc.ca
  • Address: 1150 Raymur Avenue, Vancouver BC
  • Phone: 604-216-3074
  • Website: www.foodbank.bc.ca
  • Best time(s) method(s) to contact: Email anytime

Project Description

To document and analyse best-before dates (BBD) via established food categories in the Greater Vancouver Food Bank’s non-perishable inventory using the predetermined sample size that has been established for monthly nutrition analysis:

  • Collection of 450 units from each of the 10 food and beverage sources for purchasing and donations, our “inbound streams”.

NOTE: The sample size provides an accurate description of GVFB’s inventory with a 95% confidence level.

  • Sampling Procedure Development Report, by Kevin Elsaputra University Of British Columbia, Masters Of Food And Resource Economics. AUGUST 22, 2016.

Goals of the Project

The analysis will be used to understand how the quantity of food in inventory may be affected by policy changes pertaining to the acceptable period foods or beverages are distributed past the BBD.

Skills Preferred + To Be Developed

Accuracy and sustained focus:

  1. Reading and understanding best-before dates using Canadian, US and international formats.
  2. Collecting and entering data: best-before dates and food category
  3. Analyzing and graphing data.
  4. Report writing.

Preferred Days of Week and Hours

  • Students will have access to GVFB staff at the GVFB Head Office/Warehouse location: Tuesday to Thursday, 9:00 am to 3:00 pm.

Project/Partner Orientation

Reading:

  • Sampling Procedure Development Report, by Kevin Elsaputra, University Of British Columbia, Masters Of Food And Resource Economics. AUGUST 22, 2016
  • GVFB 2017 Community Report

Orientation regarding

  • GVFB food quality: food safety, condition and nutrition.
  • GVFG values and how they relate to food access, food literacy and food quality
  • Food recovery/rescue overview from a GVFB perspective
  • Review of the 10 inbound streams and food categories
  • Warehouse safety
  • Sampling procedure

Expected Outcomes

Learning Outcomes

  • I hope students will learn about… food quality, best-before dates, member choice and dignity, and the challenges of food recovery in a large urban food bank setting.
  • I think students will come to appreciate… the complexity of assessing food quality and implementing food quality standards.
  • Students will develop an… appreciation for the complexity of the industrial food system when it intersects with a large urban food bank and the challenges of questioning widely held public perceptions about best-before dates.

Organizational Outcomes

  • An opportunity to change the dialogue regarding food recovery by sharing our food bank’s experience and knowledge.
  • A practical understanding of best-before dates in our inventory.
  • Data that will inform future policies about best-before dates.
source: https://wiki.ubc.ca/Course:LFS350/Projects/W2018/GVFB