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Introduction

Every month, 4 000 boxes of fresh fruit and vegetables are delivered to 200 volunteer-run neighbourhood dropoffs in Metropolitan Toronto. The Good Food Box (GFB) project of FoodShare Metro Toronto is essentially a large buying club, based on many of the same principles and aspirations as Japan’s Seikatsu Club, the United States’ Share Box, and Brazil’s Citizens’ Action Against Hunger and Poverty and for Life. Since its inception in 1993 the GFB has grown steadily, and eight towns in Southern and central Ontario have adopted the model or variations of it. This paper provides a case study of the development, operation, and principles of the GFB as a successful community-based market-driven food-distribution alternative.

Development of the GFB project

The GFB was the eventual outcome of the Field to Table project, started in 1991 by the Toronto Food Policy Council (FPC). The members of the FPC recognized that food banks were an inadequate response to urban hunger and that hunger at the individual and household levels is not the only facet of food insecurity (FPC 1994). A feasibility study proposed alternatives for people with food-access barriers, such alternatives as small, preorder buying clubs and traveling fresh-produce markets. FoodShare, a Toronto antihunger organization, agreed to take over the actual operation and administration of the Field to Table project. An advisory group comprising Ontario farmers and antipoverty activists provided direction for the project.

Buying clubs and markets are designed to provide people with locally grown, nutritious, fresh food in their neighbourhoods, independently of the for-profit retail system. Although they succeed on one level, they are extremely labour intensive and expensive to run. They require a high number of staff hours and a lot of labour and faith from community members. Inspired by international models from Brazil and Japan, the FPC and FoodShare staff began to develop what they hoped would be a more efficient and sustainable system that would serve more people. In February 1994, staff packed the first 40 GFB food boxes at FoodShare’s offices.

Operations

The GFB purchases the food for its boxes from the Ontario Food Terminal (the outlet for most imported and local produce coming into Ontario). As the project grew, it began to buy directly from farmers. The GFB distribution system developed into a partly staff-driven, partly volunteer-run project. Volunteers pack boxes twice monthly, then deliver them to any neighbourhood location in Toronto with 10 or more individuals or families who want to buy a box. Volunteer coordinators collect money in advance of delivery, call in orders, then make sure that customers get their boxes.

The GFB buys food centrally, based on the numbers of advance orders. The advance-order system minimizes waste and is designed to coincide with the income cycles of people on social assistance (orders and payment are made when money is available; food arrives when supplies and money are scarce). The boxes have standard contents, although items vary with each delivery, according to what is in season or what is a good deal at the time. Participants sacrifice choice for affordability and convenience.

Principles

Even at the planning stage, a top priority of the GFB was to ensure that the produce was very fresh and of the best quality, with a good balance of staples and luxury items. Centralized purchasing also permits a focus on other goals of food-security and health: buying locally and as directly as possible allows the GFB to provide in-season produce and offer more nutritious produce (for example, romaine lettuce versus iceberg lettuce). The GFB newsletter included in the box provides information on food preparation, nutrition, and food issues.

The GFB reflects a philosophy distinct from, though not incompatible with, other strategies to reduce hunger. On the one hand, traditional charity focuses on the individual and his or her immediate household food shortage; on the other, the GFB is an example of advocacy for systemic, long-term solutions on behalf of entire classes of people (for example, advocacy for income redistribution). The GFB is a response to problems recognized by most antihunger activists: that food banks are not a sustainable food-distribution mechanism and that food-bank recipients often feel that their self-esteem is damaged by having to rely on charity. Although unquestionably the emergency and advocacy approaches are vital, the GFB also challenges assumptions often shared by proponents of both these approaches — that the normal, or “ideal,” food-distribution mechanism is the for-profit retail system and that if people had enough money to buy food, they would have no problem with the food system.

A food-security analysis shows that adequate income is a necessary but not sufficient condition for food security on either the individual or the societal level. The GFB challenges the premise that the oligopolistic retail food sector, so largely shaped by advertising and profit-making exigencies, is the healthiest way for everyone to obtain their food. Thus, even if everyone had enough money to buy food from a supermarket tomorrow, would our food supply necessarily be safe, stable, and geared toward community needs and individual health? Would we have the skills and nutritional knowledge needed to prepare food and have the socially rewarding and empowering food culture needed to enjoy it?

The GFB incorporates some elements of a traditional business. It is a “community business,” which must survive in a marketplace dominated by powerful, “efficient” corporations. This means that the GFB must offer products, delivery, and service that are competitive with, or superior to, those offered by a supermarket. The market mechanism is thus a good indicator of whether the project works for people and avoids taking a top-down approach that fails to address real community needs.

In a capitalist society, without other types of meaningful social participation, people often find self-affirmation in being treated as “customers.” This is partly because a retailer must treat people with respect and provide a good-quality product. If these are not forthcoming, customers will exercise their power of complaint and their prerogative to shop elsewhere. Aside from the real, practical nature of the consumer relationship, it has a symbolic dimension. A good-quality product and good service give customers the message that they are valued. Low-income people are often the recipients of inferior goods, either those they receive from food banks or those they are forced to select to save money (the “garbage food for garbage people” perception that Foley [1992] identified among food-bank recipients). The high-quality food in the GFB is intended to send the message that “you’re worth it.” This is confirmed by the professional evaluations of the GFB, which have consistently cited the good quality of the food in GFB as an important motive for purchasing GFB food boxes (SWC 1996).

One can speculate that this is one explanation for the lack of popularity of the Staples Box and the Basic Box, which were experimental versions of the GFB, providing basic dry goods and less expensive fruit and vegetables, respectively. Although it is difficult to identify all the variables that might explain their failure, the customers may well have been too used to shopping for the “no-name” and lower end food items and they therefore experienced them more negatively than they did the goods in the GFB food boxes, with their touches of extravagance (strawberries, cranberries at Christmas, etc.). On a purely practical level, the Staples Box and Basic Box may have made sense, but customers may have experienced them as simply no fun.

The GFB has never used a means test. This is to avoid the stigma attached to services exclusively for poor people. A recent study of food insecurity in Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto, found that 46% of low-income people surveyed had never used a food bank (SHC 1997). The stigma attached to the use of food banks (especially strong among some immigrant groups) appears to have been a primary reason for this. If the fear of stigma prevents people from using even a free service constructed only for low-income people, then a service charging a fee and requiring unconventional shopping practices must be even more wary of putting people off. The organizers’ analysis of the failure of one GFB experiment in Windsor, Ontario, bears out the theory that the association with charity may cause people to avoid participating (Scharf and Morgan 1998). It would be impossible to administer a means test without sending the message that this service caters to “the poor.” So the GFB has never used one. However, the GFB targets low-income neighbourhoods and groups.

The GFB’s refusal to employ a means test is also justified because most people, regardless of income, consume inadequate amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables. Evaluation shows that GFB customers do increase their intake of fresh fruit and vegetables, possibly either because the GFB raises their awareness of the health benefits or because it fills the refrigerator with fresh food that must be eaten or left to spoil. Higher income people use the project at a much lower rate, perhaps because they have the

transportation and money to access exactly the food they want at exactly the time they want it (SWC 1996).

The GFB competes in the marketplace of imagery as well. Early evaluations showed that low-quality publicity materials created an impression of a low-quality product (Saint Jacques 1994). So care has been taken to create bright, upbeat materials that acknowledge that low-income people are savvy media consumers and that they would prefer to be a part of a project with positive, uplifting imagery than one with a dingy or depressing aura.

Although the GFB seeks to be efficient and sustainable, it goes far beyond the traditional retailer’s role in its response to community needs. Sometimes serving these needs is not the most efficient economic strategy. In this way, the GFB is more like a traditional nonprofit organization, governed by an ethic of service, rather than a preoccupation with the bottom line. The GFB organizers initially hoped that an economy of scale and centralized administration would entirely pay for the project. But a variety of other expenses have turned up, that is, for community development, environmentally sound practices, health promotion, volunteer support and development, nutrition and food-skills education, political education, and advocacy. Capital inputs needed to run a project of this scale are also high, along with the crossover expenses that go to support related FoodShare projects running with the same staff and equipment (a community economic-development catering project, a kitchen incubator, a food-skills training project for low-income women).

The payments made by customers for the GFB are roughly equivalent to the cost of the food itself, delivery, and the newsletter. FoodShare’s funding mechanisms cover staff time, capital costs, and other expenses. These mechanisms include private donations and grants from foundations and government. Although one cannot be sure what motivates funders to support a given project, the government probably supports the GFB because it can reach into the community on a more grass-roots level than government-run projects can and the CFB’s size and efficiency enable it to promote health on a reasonably large scale.

Private donors make an important contribution to FoodShare’s funding. However, appealing to private donors is complex, as many are primarily familiar with more traditional charitable “feed the poor” appeals (including FoodShare’s own appeals in the past). Care must be taken in the mailing campaigns and newsletters to avoid alienating private donors while honestly explaining the project and the difference between food security and food charity.

The GFB is more a community-development than a community economic-development project geared to job creation. The aim of improving food access for low-income people is to a great extent at odds with that of providing jobs. This latter goal must be left to projects that tap a wealthier market (for example, the Field to Table Catering Co., also a FoodShare project). The GFB relies on the volunteer labour of GFB packers and neighbourhood coordinators. Volunteers receive a free box, which appears to be an important incentive, but this is in no way a payment at a market rate. The volunteers’ food “honoraria” require a subsidy, but not as large a subsidy as would be needed to provide salaries for the 500 volunteers who support the project. Theoretically, one can see the GFB as stepping over into a subsistence or barter economy, rather than seeing the free food box purely as a commodity with a market value. Ideally, food should not be viewed in relation to one’s ability to pay for it, but as something basic to health and therefore as something qualitatively different from other commodities.

When viewed in this light, the acceptable relationship between volunteer time and food received, together with the community development achieved, is different from that of a simple work-for-money relationship.

As a community-development project, the GFB tries to mitigate some of the difficulties that such projects often experience. The traditional difficulty with community development is that it requires heavy buy-in and labour from the community. Unfortunately, the demand for this level of commitment often thwarts the success of the project — the labour of a few volunteers rarely seems to justify the rewards (hence the difficulty keeping small-scale buying clubs going). This has been FoodShare’s experience with community gardening projects as well: groups are often shipwrecked by the grueling and difficult early stages of sod-turning or by disheartening learning-curve disasters. Where there is clearly a need, a little skilled help with garden design and labour can go a long way to creating success.

The GFB works on the principle that a project must meet demonstrated community needs and rely heavily on community input. Just as importantly, a project needs to have a good reception and abundant resources in its early stages. Starting with a fundamentally good idea with a concrete and visible benefit is better than having fruitless and endless meetings, with a “product” or benefit figuring only as an eventual payoff. The danger, of course, is that the project may become too undemocratic and centralized.

The way the CFB determines the box contents is an example of how it maintains a balance between democratic participation and central planning. Were one to strictly follow the community-development credo of asking the community what it wants, it is quite possible people would demand processed, brand-name items. However, rather than insulting popular taste, one should recognize that consumer desires are not created in a vacuum but in response to the many millions of dollars spent on advertising highly processed, nonnutritious foods. The health-promotion role of providing a countervailing influence through social marketing qualifies the community-development objective of working only for what the community articulates as its desires. So FoodShare has chosen to provide and promote only nutritious foods, knowing that people also need and desire these and that people still have the option of purchasing processed foods through other means. On the other hand, the GFB makes no attempt to stretch people’s preferences too far in the direction of “health food” by including, say, seaweed in the box. Within these parameters, feedback on contents is welcome, and the GFB is constantly making adjustments based on this feedback.

Conclusions

The GFB has, from the very beginning, sought community input through customer service and detailed project evaluation. In terms of project design and control, early attempts to hold meetings and educational sessions showed that neither customers nor coordinators have much interest in project administration or in activities or politics beyond the scope of the project. However, a survey of coordinators indicated that many were starting to take an interest in networking, advising the project, and learning more about food issues and the food system (SWC 1995). Hence, a concerted attempt has been made to form a coordinators network to facilitate this.

The Toronto organizers have always hoped that the project would form the basis for some type of food action or consumer movement similar to those in Japan and

Peru. Low-income people in Toronto have historically proven difficult to organize (in this as well as any other type of collective action, for that matter). The GFB has operated on the principle of taking only baby steps into community and political development. Whereas a food bank, welfare office, or supermarket deals with the individual, the GFB will only deal with groups — a small way of encouraging community self-organization. As a first step into collective action, becoming a GFB coordinator or becoming a customer who purchases food in this novel way may be significant enough. FoodShare’s hope is that in the longer term, the GFB’s customers will show the same general inclination as the coordinators and become interested in complementary food-access initiatives, and possibly even consumer or political activism. The GFB newsletter continues to highlight these programs and issues.

The GFB is constantly negotiating the tensions between the need for efficiency, competitiveness, and health promotion and that for service and responsiveness to individual and community needs. The ability to be flexible and to constantly reassess progress is key to making the project a success. If we start from the premise that a food system that actually works for low-income people and promotes a stable, local agricultural economy is needed, we get a very different result than if we start from the premise that the task is to remedy food emergencies. In this case, the means and process of setting up this alternative system become as important as the objective of improving food access. But idealism can only take us so far. The project must be relevant to individuals, feasible, and sustainable. Thus, the hope is that the GFB can act as a catalyst to mobilize interest and action in working toward the social goals of improved health, building community capacity, reviving a healthy food culture, and gaining equitable control over food supply.

References

Foley, M.C. 1992. Beggars can’t be choosers: an ethnography of a food bank. York University, Toronto, ON, Canada. MA thesis.

FPC (Food Policy Council). 1994. Reducing urban hunger in Ontario: policy responses to support the transition from food charity to local food security. FPC, Toronto, ON, Canada.

Saint Jacques, H. 1994. Field to Table social marketing program: an in-depth consumer evaluation of Field to Table services. Informa, Inc., Toronto, ON, Canada.

Scharf, K.; Morgan, M.L. 1998. The Good Food Box guide. FoodShare, Toronto, ON, Canada.

SHC (Scarborough Hunger Coalition). 1997. Food insecurity in Scarborough: a study of current reality and a report of recommendations for community action. SHC, Toronto, ON, Canada. Research Paper.

SWC (Smaller World Communications). 1995. Field to Table coordinators survey. SWC, Toronto, ON, Canada.

———1996. Field to Table program evaluation results. SWC, Toronto, ON, Canada. 50 pp.

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