Parkdale Food Center: Mino’Wessini Grocery Points System Evaluation
Posted on Monday, December 4th, 2023
Food insecurity is a significant issue in our community, and with the increasing economic inequities in Ottawa, it has become a challenge for many to afford healthy food. The Parkdale Food Center’s Mino’Wessini location is a non-traditional food bank that offers a grocery program using a choice model of food distribution to be able to offer their clients, uniquely called “neighbours”, a traditional grocery experience. Mino’Wessini only offers healthy, nutritious options to their neighbours, following the recommendations from the Canada’s Food Guide. In 2020, the Parkdale Food Center developed an in-house points system where this food is “priced” with points and each family is allocated a certain amount of points per month, based on the number of people in their household. With these points, the neighbours are able to “buy” the groceries and have the freedom to decide what and how much they want. The original points system was developed using Ottawa Public Health’s Nutritious Food Basket recommendations for the average monthly cost of groceries. The Algonquin College BScN students were tasked with evaluating this point-system and providing recommendations to better reflect the current prices in grocery stores, nutritional guides and community needs.