Edmonton food basket program combats climbing grocery prices with bulk-buying hack

As the cost of groceries continues to increase, one Edmonton organization is harnessing the power of bulk buying to ensure its members aren’t going hungry at a critical time every month.

The WECAN Food Basket Society is a non-profit that helps more than 1,000 Albertans with fixed or low incomes get nutritious food when they may be running low on funds in the last week of each month.

The program works by having members prepay for food baskets at the beginning of the month. Then, at a specified day about three weeks later, participants can go to any one of  23 designated depots across Edmonton to pick them up. 

The program offers monthly produce baskets to members that contain different kinds of fruits and vegetables for $15. It also offers meat baskets that could contain 500 grams of lean ground beef and more than a kilogram of chicken for $20, according to the organization’s website.

Alyssa Schroth, WECAN’s program manager, said her organization fills a gap in the food program landscape for the Edmonton area.

“It relieves some of that pressure off of food banks and other programs, and we can work together to try and tackle the food insecurity that is growing for everybody in Alberta,” she said.

 Schroth said the organization is able to keep prices low for members by purchasing its food at wholesale rates.

“So our members — if they’re consistently purchasing produce and meat baskets every month —  last year they saved upwards of over $300 based on … buying the same things at a traditional grocery store,” said Schroth.

She said the organization usually hands out about 1,000 prepaid food baskets a month across Edmonton, and about 1,500 members are currently registered with the program.

WECAN’s website says the program’s membership fees are $5 per year, and it’s available “to individuals whose health and overall well-being could benefit from increased access to affordable and nutritious food.”

Schroth said the program has a loyal community of members, and the more people that join the program, the “more power we have with wholesale.”

“We know a lot of memberships renew every year, and people have been part of the program for 30 years since it started," she said. “But we also have new members signing up every single day.”

Heidi Collins-McCann, who has been a member of the program for more than 15 years, said the program’s low prices are vital for her and her family.

“My whole family is low income,” she said.