Helping neighbours in need is a community effort. Here at The Food Bank of Waterloo Region, we couldn’t support our community the way we do without the incredible generosity of sponsors like Zehrs.

Many people in Waterloo region are surprised to find out that Zehrs was founded here in Kitchener in 1950. Today, there are 42 store locations across southern Ontario and each one is committed to giving back to the communities in which they operate.

For more than 25 years, Zehrs has been a dedicated food industry partner of The Food Bank, giving regular food donations through our food recovery program. As part of this program, we work with restaurants, farmers, manufacturers, distributors, and retailers like Zehrs to prevent edible, healthy food from being discarded and instead redirected to help the more than 58,000 people in Waterloo region struggling to afford to put food on the table.

“We’re proud to reduce waste and help the community,” says Maddison Meyer, the store manager at Zehrs Stanley Park in Kitchener.

In addition to being one of our food industry partners, Zehrs supports our Food & Fund Drive program through sponsorship. If you’ve ever organized or participated in a food and fund drive, you might have seen the Zehrs logo on our bags and boxes. Their sponsorship alone provides 20,000 meals for people in need.

We’re also grateful to Zehrs for collecting food donations from customers all year round. At any Zehrs location in Kitchener-Waterloo, you’ll find a donation bin at the front of the store. And at a few events throughout the year, we have volunteers at various Zehrs stores in Kitchener-Waterloo, collecting monetary and food donations from customers as they grocery shop.

“I love seeing the customers get excited and the amount of food that were able to give back to the community,” says Maddison. “It’s extremely rewarding.”

To top it off, Zehrs stores in Kitchener-Waterloo also participate in Sea of Orange every year, an annual event where the stores donate food from our most needed items list and then visit The Food Bank for a tour and engagement activity. This year, their donations through Sea of Orange provided over 6,000 meals for people in our community. As the need for food assistance continues to increase, we couldn’t be more grateful for all the ways Zehrs supports The Food Bank.

To learn more about The Food Bank’s sponsorship opportunities and how your business can help ensure no one in our community goes hungry, visit our website or contact our partnership officers, Nicole Marinelli at nicolem@thefoodbank.ca and Hunter Markle at hunterm@thefoodbank.ca.