HOW DO WE BENEFIT LOCAL FARMS?

Loop gets food people can’t eat to animals that can’t wait.

Loop Farmers pick up unsellable food from partner grocery stores to feed their very grateful animals, all for no fee.

In addition to the nutritious feed for your animals, farmers are connected to a HUGE community of Loopers locally and across Canada! Over 4,000 farmers offer support and tips that make membership in Loop interesting and fun.

Who Are Loop Farmers?

The Loop team carefully chooses our partner farms, prioritizing family farms practicing mixed, holistic farming. Ideal farmers for the program have a mix of animals that can use most everything they get in Loop pickups, meaning nothing is wasted. Loop was built by farmers for farmers, using methods that keep unsold food at high quality and provide nutritious supplemental feed to farm animals.

We help farms with a mix of the following animals: goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, llamas, pigs, cows, buffalo, geese, rabbits, dogs, cats, horses, and many more! They love the real, fresh food, and many farmers tell us they see an improvement in overall animal health.

Based on the number and mix of animals that farmers have, Loop will carefully match farms with stores offering an appropriate amount of food for their animals’ needs.

Learn More About Us »

Since Aug 2017:

total weight diverted:
148
million kgs
number of farms involved:
4000
number of grocery stores involved:
400
volume of food rescued for charity:
6.6
million kgs

How to Apply

Applying for Loop is easy! Simply click the ‘Sign Up’ button below, input details about your location, farm animals, and feed needs, and submit. We will then send you an introductory email to confirm your application (check you junk email folder). Depending on your location there may be a waitlist – this happens when there are more farms interested than we have stores in that one city or area - but rest assured that we are constantly growing. We want to help as many farms as possible. If you got our introductory email, but haven’t heard from us since, we haven’t forgotten about you! We don’t want to clog your inbox with unnecessary emails. We contact all farms in order of seniority - those who sign up first and have a potential store match for their farm and location will be sent an email, a phone call, and a text by our New Farms team just as soon as there is a space available in the program.

What Real Loop Farmers Say About Loop

“Our first pick-up was on Monday with an incredible number of boxes! We are so grateful our animals get all of this healthy food! We hung a bunch of apples, cabbage, and lettuce heads at different heights for all the chickens to peck at. It kept them busy for most of the day. Great fun all around! ”

- Kim, Ontario

Composting

We encourage farms in our program to have an active composting system to ensure that none of the received goods are wasted. North American farmland is losing soil at an unsustainable rate, and good carbon stewardship starts with healthy, active soil. Loop farms are active participants in this, and any carbon materials that cannot be used as feed or for energy production are used in the production of compost.

CFIA & Making Good Feeding Decisions

Farmers are responsible for all on-farm feed decisions for their animals as they care for them and are most invested in healthy and sustainable farm practices. Loop starts with food in human-grade condition, then works with grocery store staff to keep food items in that same condition, at display temperature, and sorted by department until it leaves for the farm. We ask the store team to keep their unpackaged counter-sale items separated into two categories: meat items, and non-meat items. Meat and items that have come into contact with meat or meat by-products or juices are used on-farm only to feed guardian dogs or cats, and never given to livestock. All packaged food remains in its original packaging with ingredient labels. These and other Loop policies allow farmers to make careful and informed feed decisions. Loop is not a “mixed swill” or post-consumer feed program.

We do not recommend specific feed protocols, but our Farm Manual provides general resources on this topic, particularly regarding CFIA compliance and biosecurity. Loop requires participating farms to follow all CFIA regulations.

Loop takes violations of its policies seriously. If you believe a violation may be happening, or are unsure about a situation you’ve seen, please reach out to us confidentially by emailing: support@loopresource.ca

I love seeing how many bellies large and small benefit from moving the food along weekly. We are thankful on behalf of our menagerie!

- Elisa, Coastal BC / Vancouver Island
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