B.C. food swap group supports home bakers, gardeners in sharing their bounty as cost of living climbs

Rosemarie Stevenson was tickled when, one day, she came home to find little gifts from her neighbours — homegrown tomatoes or peaches — sitting on her doorstep. 

In return, she baked them some sourdough bread, and left it on their porches.

Now, the avid baker has launched a group dedicated to trading food grown or made in peoples homes, in the name of sustainability and community. 

Kelowna Food Swap, which is in its early days with just 75 members on Facebook, is a place for people in the area to share and trade homemade or homegrown items such as jam, bread, pastries, fresh produce and eggs.    

In the group, people have offered quince, ginger cookies and pickled onions, among other things, while others have shared what they’re hoping someone else might have — walnuts or plums, for example. 

“The only rule is … I don't want something that's store-bought, because that's not the initiative,” Stevenson told CBC’s Daybreak South. “I want them to have the home element into it.”

The food swap group is one of many ways people are looking to share resources as the cost of living continues to skyrocket. 

For example, neighbourhood "Buy Nothing" groups exploded on Facebook during the COVID-19 pandemic — with the groups seeing people posting items they no longer needed in an effort to offer them to someone who could use them, and thereby keep items out of landfills. 

And food waste apps, like Too Good To Go and Flashfood, are growing in popularity as businesses look to sell surplus items at a discounted rate that would otherwise end up in the trash. 

Similarly, Stevenson said her group alleviates the overabundance of items people make or grow.

“Who wants to eat kale for weeks on end? You don't,” she said. “But if you can produce that kale and you have a bumper crop and then you would trade it for something else, jam, baked goods or sourdough bread, I mean, it makes everybody happy.”

In August, Canada's grocery inflation rate rose 3.5 per cent compared to the same period last year, and last month Food Banks Canada reported a quarter of Canadians are struggling with food insecurity.

Eventually, Stevenson said she’d like the social media group to turn into an in-person event, where people bring a basket full of the items they make or grow, swap with folks and leave with a basket full of different items. 

“I love people,” she said. “I like that personal interaction.”