For the first installment of our profile series, meet Beth, our Social Enterprise Coordinator!

This is a name you’re likely most familiar with since Beth oversees all things customer care! Check out our chat with Beth to get to know her better.

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What is your favourite vegetable?
I don’t play favourites with my greens but I am looking forward to…

some big fat sugar snap peas this summer.

What does a typical day working on FoodReach look like for you?
I mostly oversee day-to-day operations so no two days are alike. I talk to our suppliers and non-profit customers all day long to make sure essential food needs are met. This wouldn’t be possible though if it wasn’t for the rest of the operations team’s heavy lifting (literally too!). There’s a lot of moving parts to keep FoodReach running smoothly so it’s the team that really gets things done.

What is your favourite part about working on the FoodReach project? 
Working for a social enterprise is very purpose-driven. Whether we are advocating for lower prices with suppliers, problem-solving a delivery challenge to make sure an agency gets their order on time, or sourcing healthy kids’ snacks, there is typically a positive end goal. So sorry, no favourites here again.

What do you like most about working with our customers? 
Learning about their projects! We supply and service food programs across the city and it is very enlightening for me to learn how they are finding ways to feed their communities.

In your perspective, what role does FoodReach play in supporting food access to these communities? What other opportunities do you think FoodReach can support?
A lot of the organizations we support are small with limited resources but their impact is immeasurable to the areas they serve. Yes, our priority is to offer competitively low-cost food, but there is also value in removing other barriers to food access like transportation, storage, and logistics. A small organization can place an order with us in under 5 minutes and they no longer have to send out volunteers to bargain hunt, buy food, jam it into a car, and then worry about how it will be stored for the next week. We cover all those bases. The next step is to figure out how we can connect and provide these similar services to organizations outside of the GTA.

What key ingredients make FoodReach successful?
good idea + good team + good service + good quality food