The Bow Valley Good Food Box is a community partnership designed to make healthy, fresh fruit & vegetables accessible, especially for residents experiencing food insecurity.

For many residents in the Bow Valley, the cost of living impairs their ability to access fresh fruits & vegetables. The 2017 Living Wage report showed that the cost of standard food items in Canmore is approximately 5% higher than anywhere else in Alberta. Unfortunately, according to Canada’s Food Price Report, the average yearly cost of food for a family is projected to go up in 2021, due to factors such as the pandemic & wildfires. The gap between cost of living & average wage here can & has resulted in issues with food security. The Bow Valley Good Food Box helps all residents access affordable & nutritious food. After doing some cost comparisons, we found that purchasing the same items received in the box at the grocery stores in Banff/Canmore come to just over 50$ – meaning purchasing the box saves you 20-25$ on fruits/veg!

Who’s involved?

This Bow Valley partnership includes the PCN, the Town of Banff, the M.D. of Bighorn, ID No. 9 (Lake Louise), with support from the Town of Canmore and the Bow Valley Food Alliance. The Christmas Spirit Campaign & the Rotary Club of Canmore provide funding to make the boxes accessible to people with different affordability needs.

Since September 2019, the GFB has been available to residents across the Bow Valley; including Banff, Canmore, Kananaskis, Lake Louise, Mini Thni, & the M.D. of Bighorn.

As of April 1, 2020, the above organizations partnered with the Canmore chapter of Edmonton based company, The Organic Box. The Organic Box team purchases fresh, top-quality produce directly from farmers & wholesale suppliers to create the GFB each month. They make sure that the boxes contain the maximum amount of fresh fruits & vegetables possible for the cost. To do so, they also focus on what’s in season locally. The team at Organic Box then use all recommended safe food-handling processes to assemble the boxes before delivering them to our pick-up locations.