Sudbury's Meals on Wheels prepares to start making frozen meals

Meals on Wheels in Sudbury is changing how it provides food for its clients, as the pandemic is affecting itssupply offrozen meals

The group currently offers a hot meal program that sees food beingmade for about 200 people inSudbury. It also brings in frozen food from a facility in southern Ontario and that supply line has been pinched.

Meals on Wheels executive directorShannon Ketchabawsays "everyone seemed to be ordering frozen meals" from Ontario's two frozen meals suppliers when the pandemic hit.

"And our suppliers had to put caps on the inventory that we could order every two weeks. So we were no longer permitted to order extra. And they also put restrictions on what could be ordered," she said.

"So they adapted the menus ... and the cost of the meals went up as well. So certainly it made it a little bit more challenging for us to be able to ensure we could deliver the quality service we always have with that frozen meal program."

With people buying extra food to stock up,Ketchabawsaid even Meals on Wheels clients werewanting to stock up on hot meals.

As an agency, they also had to have back-up meals in case their hot mealkitchen had to close at any given time.

"I believe that was probably happening with every Meals on Wheels or any agency that would be currently ordering from them. So the demand became very high."

Ketchabawsays she's now happy to report they have some provincial funding tocreate a new, frozen food facility in Sudbury.

"We're already great at producing wonderful hot quality meals for our clients. This is just going to be a new venture where we will continue to produce those quality meals and ensure our clients have them for our frozen options as well,"she said.

The plan is to have the renovations completed and the equipment purchased by December.

And oncethey're operational, there are opportunities to sell those meals to other agencies in the region.

"Eventually, we should be able to expand and be able to help other agencies. We have people interested already, locally, who would like to purchase from us when we're up and running," Ketchabaw said.

"Even [people] in other northern communities have expressed an interest in ordering from us.It's a new way for us to do business and certainly a way to aid us in being sustainable and revenue generating."