1,000 lbs of dried beans heading to the Guelph Food Bank thanks to University of Guelph donation

Rather than letting them go to waste, 1,000 lbs of beans will be making their way to the Guelph Food Bank as part of a donation from researchers at the University of Guelph.

Mohsen Yoosefzadeh Najafabadi is a dry bean breeder and computational biologist at the university's Ontario Agriculture College, where he and his students find ways to improve the crop's yield and stress resilience.

Yoosefzadeh Najafabadi said they only use a small portion of the over 100,000 bean plants grown for research.

As a bean breeder, he cross breeds different bean types to create a stronger bean. One year, he will plant several thousand of that strand and then selects several hundred to plant the following year and so on, until he gets one strand that he calls a "super bean."

But that means the majority of the crop doesn't get harvested or used and this year he was looking for a way to connect his work with the community.

"It doesn't mean that the ones that are not selected are not good quality," Yoosefzadeh Najafabadi told CBC News.

"It just means they can't pass the breeding criteria. They are good. They are perfect, so let's do something out of it."

He said they grow many different kinds of beans, including navy, cranberry, black, kidney, pinto and adzuki beans.

Some of the beans will also be going to United Way to be used as art for a fundraiser the organization is hosting Thursday.

Guelph Food Bank CEO Carolyn McLeod-McCarthy said the donation comes at a time where more people are needing their services.

"We've gone up over 37 per cent since January in the number of people that need to come through to get food, mostly due to the cost of living and the cost of groceries," McLeod-McCarthy told CBC News.

"When it comes to proteins we're also looking for nutritional proteins and culturally appropriate foods, so this works out really well."

McLeod-McCarthy said the increase of food bank use in Guelph means they're now serving more than 5,000 people a month, including children.

Food Banks Canada released its 2025 Hunger Count report Monday, which showed monthly visits to food banks across the country reached close to 2.2 million, double the number of monthly visits in 2019.