Skip to content

Community members go bananas for the Okotoks Food Bank

The Okotoks Food Bank did not waste one of approximately 5,500 bananas that came their way.

When life gives you bananas, make bread.

Or smoothies. Or soup.

That’s how it went down for the Okotoks Food Bank Association came into around 2,200 pounds of bananas from the Calgary Food Bank.

“We got a call from the Calgary Food Bank, about nine o'clock Friday, Feb.26 saying they had this enormous supply of bananas,” said Pamela McLean, executive director of the Okotoks food bank.

Carl Kennedy, the food bank's warehouse director, drove into the city that day and returned with the tonne of bananas. That’s 55 cases, around 100 bananas to a case, or 5,500 bananas.

Accompanying the bananas was a load of strawberries.

The food bank’s staff reached out to smaller neighbouring organizations and several responded, including Food Rescue out of High River and the Oilfields Food Bank out of Turner Valley.

“With bananas and produce of that type, you have to work with it pretty quickly,” said McLean. “So we had a lot of the bananas actually pushed out of the warehouse by day end Friday.”

Local chefs didn’t let the opportunity slip either.

Sherry Lindenback, owner of 94 Take the Cake, took seven cases off their hands and fired up the ovens.

“We got wind that there was an influx of bananas,” she said. “We had all this stuff and it literally would’ve gone into the compost.

“It's one of those things you have to catch right before it hits—fruit is tricky."

Lindenback chose to turn some of the endangered fruit into banana bread, with different portion sizes to meet the needs of the food bank.

To McLean’s delight, three banana cases came back, filled with the resultant loaves.

“Lo and behold, the next day, she brought us back banana loaves, in all shapes and sizes,” said McLean.

“She made them for big families, for small families, for single people.

“They're quite wonderful.”

In addition to the banana bread, Lindenback used some of the strawberries to make strawberry white chocolate scones, which will be frozen at the shop and baked before being donated. 

Mark Klaudt, chef and co-owner of Studio Me, who regularly prepares soups for the Okotoks food bank through his Soup for the Soul program, prepared protein shake packs that only need milk or yogurt before blending, and some of the strawberries made their way into his eclectic soup varieties.

He was making a regular delivery of his soups to the food bank and saw the towers of produce.

“So I walked into the cooler and there's all these strawberries, then (they) show me this stack of bananas and I'm like, ‘Oh, my gosh, this is ridiculous,’” he said.

Using Lindenback’s professional kitchen to meet the regulations of the food bank, Klaudt prepared portioned berry banana protein shake packs that need only yogurt or milk before blending.

These were frozen and added to the food bank’s stores.

Additionally, he prepared soups and jams with the strawberries that were perhaps not attractive enough to be eaten whole.

Those will be sold and the proceeds given back to the food bank or put towards costs for Klaudt's Soup for the Soul program, ultimately going back to the food bank.

McLean said nothing was wasted.

“We did not compost one banana. We found a home and a use for every one that was donated to us,” she said. “I am very pleased with the team and their ingenuity.”

Klaudt sees the entire episode as a testament to the benefits of community connections.

“This was just a real catalyst to what the heck is possible in our communities," he said. "And what we could do.”

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks