North Valley Food Bank’s ready-to-heat meals a solution for housing insecurity

With an increasing number of customers visiting North Valley Food Bank experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness, ready-to-heat meals are filling the need for nutritious food that’s accessible and easy to prepare. 

“These meals are an answer to the issue of food insecurity for our neighbors living in all kinds situations,” said Rachel Broom, culinary arts manager.  

In November 2023, Broom and a team of culinary volunteers quickly began experimenting with transforming "rescue food" and local fresh produce into delicious ready-to-heat meals for food bank customers.  

Rescue food is quality food from local grocery stores that would otherwise be thrown away because it does not meet retail standards for appearance or is close to the expiration date. The rescue food provides ready-to-eat and ready-to-heat meals to the community while also keeping more food out of the landfill. 

North Valley Food Bank has partnered with local farms to harvest over 10,000 pounds of produce just this year. 

With rescue food and local produce, the food bank now prepares and distributes more than 1,000 ready-to-eat meals monthly. 

North Valley Food Bank  also collaborates with other local nonprofits, such as the Kalispell HEARTProgram, to ensure the ready-to-heat meals get to youth and children.  

“We are trying to be super creative and use all the parts of the vegetables. For our pop-up eatery in September, we pickled a bunch of brassica stems for our sandwiches and roasted corn hair as a soup topping,” Broom said.  

A few customer favorites have been shepherd's pie, breakfast casserole, hearty soups, beet burgers and banana pancakes. 

Based on the 2024 PiT Count, the Flathead Valley has currently more chronically homeless children than anywhere else in Montana. An increasing number of food bank customers are living in campers, RVs, their car, motel rooms, or small shared places without a kitchen. Not having access to a full kitchen can make preparing nutritious food almost impossible. 

Customers can shop in the North Valley Food Bank's free choice grocery store model based on their own needs.  

“I am also excited about our plans to offer more nutrition education, holiday specific meals, and pay-what-you-can pop-up eateries in the future. We love to build our programming in response to the needs of our community and are always learning about the best ways to build food security,” Broom said. 

North Valley Food Bank is located at 251 Flathead Avenue in Whitefish. More information can be found at northvalleyfoodbank.org or on Facebook and Instagram. Contact Mandy Gerth at mandy@northvalleyfoodbank.org or Rachael Broom at rachael@northvalleyfoodbank.org or call NVFB at 406-862-5863 to learn more.