Where Do your Food Donations Go?

The donations that companies make through Bourse aux dons are collected by food aid organizations that have signed the Quality Charter of Bourse aux dons.

You will find all organizations interested in food donations on the map, as well as detailed information sheets about them. You can thus inform yourself about the organization(s) to which you are making donations.

As an example, here are some concrete examples of how food aid organizations participating in Bourse aux dons operate:

  1. The non-profit organization Kommaraf functions as a local distribution center for food parcels for the greater Aarschot area and organizes, twice a week, a food distribution for about a hundred underprivileged families. This distribution center is an accessible place where people are central and can both make contacts and find calm. The non-profit organization is a member of the food bank and is supported by numerous social organizations. About twenty motivated volunteers give their time to the distribution center. Kommaraf also opened a social grocery store in the fall of 2015.
  2. The “social grocery store”De KABA is organized by the association t Sas, a collaboration between the CPAS of Bruges, the Noord-West-Vlaanderen Social Aid Center, and the City of Bruges. De KABA is a store where customers can obtain quality food and household products for free or at a lower price. Access to the store is regulated: the store access card is provided following a social investigation. The access card allows visits to the store up to four times a week. The monthly budget available to the customer is determined based on their family size. The social grocery store De KABA invests as much as possible to offer healthy products. In this context, fresh food surpluses are transformed each week into healthy, affordable, and delicious preparations, in collaboration with two Bruges schools. These preparations are offered at low prices in the social grocery store.
  3. Three times a week, in the social restaurant Kome Nete of the non-profit organization MIVAS-Goed Gevoel, staff and volunteers prepare a complete, healthy, balanced, and affordable meal (soup, main course, dessert). Prices are differentiated. The majority of customers are from underprivileged households and pay the lowest price upon presentation of a special card. Other customers are also welcome. In its social restaurant Kome Nete and its social grocery store ‘t Hofke, the non-profit organization MIVAS-Goed Gevoel brings together people in need, volunteers, and collaborators to fight against poverty. In collaboration with partner organizations, they have set up a meeting space where people can build relationships, expand their network, and find opportunities for personal growth. In parallel, MIVAS-Goed Gevoel tries to create, through these activities, employment opportunities for people who have distanced themselves from the job market.
  4. The project “Rabot op je bord” (“Rabot on Your Plate”) is an initiative of the non-profit organization Sociale Kruideniers Gent, stemming from Samenlevingsopbouw Gent. As part of this project, customers from underprivileged households, volunteers from the community field “De Site”, and local residents prepare healthy and delicious artisanal products. This is a small-scale project, compliant with food safety regulations. Fruits and vegetables are grown in the community field or come from surpluses. The project is located in Rabot, an underprivileged neighborhood close to the center of Ghent. “Rabot op je bord” caters to two groups of customers: on one hand, the customers of the social grocery store, and on the other hand, private customers (e.g., local residents) who buy the products at market price. This project has four main objectives:
    • provide a meeting place (for both people in need and local residents);
    • diversify and expand the social grocery store’s offerings with healthy products;
    • offer opportunities for volunteer work and social work;
    • reduce the amount of food surplus and transform it into sustainable products.

This is a solidarity project. The income from the sale of products is entirely invested in the social grocery store. Customers who buy products at market price know that their purchases allow investment in a social project aimed at fighting poverty.

As you can see, different food aid activities are often developed within the same social organization.