VEGAN BITES for the Soul & World Hunger Story by Sierra Simpson
Soul Bite Food offers a range of delicious frozen meals influenced by old ethnic recipes with traditional flavours from Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The recipes come from different corners of the world and carry within them an ethnic line meant to enrich the Canadian market. Their line includes; Stuffed Peppers, Stuffed Eggplant, Cabbage Rolls, Balkan Mushroom and Taste of Persia. “This has been an amazing journey,” says Soul Bite Chef Alaia Fayad. “I have been able to learn a new style of cuisine, and working closely with family and friends, we have transformed simple, traditional dishes into extraordinary products. I love the opportunity to work with new ingredients and share my knowledge with the huge network of volunteers dedicated to fighting hunger.” Soul Bite Food was innovated by the Immigrant Link Centre Society (ILCS), a charity created in 2016 to combat world hunger. In the last five years Igor and Ali Haeri, Manager of ILCS and Soul Bite have put their own time and money into the program, which led them to creating their social enterprise, Soul Bite Food in 2019. It was shaped to help ILCS grow, keep more people fed and contribute to other charities dedicated
“ILCS volunteers come from 4 different continents, over 15 countries with one common goal and that is to give back to the local community living in Canada,” says Ali, “We are all in one of the most important missions nowadays, and that is to prevent food waste as much as possible. In this way, not only do we save resources, energy and time, we also return money to the economy by repurposing edible food.”
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ILCS originally delivered food to about 20 families once a week in Coquitlam and has since grown to 7 days a week at 15 different locations. Volunteers at ILCS collect food from grocery stores that would otherwise be thrown away and distribute over 500 tons of food annually, feeding over 2,500 people in need every month. In February 2020, Soul Bite Food won silver for BC’S Most Outstanding New Product at the From the Ground Up Tradeshow. “We were so happy to see the good feedback from our products and people believing in us,” says Ali. “After that, we wanted to get our products on the market and onto the shelves of the stores.” The following month took a turn for most of us when the pandemic started, including new food manufacturers. It pushed back new products entering stores as the grocers had to put a pause on the process. “We still continued to get ready and work on things to the capacity that we could,” says Ali, “this included developing our website and preparing for when stores would be accepting new products again.” Currently Soul Bite products can be found at Vegan Supply Chinatown in Vancouver, Pomme Natural Market, Gardenia Foods Co in Port Coquitlam and online at bclocalroot.com To learn more about Soul Bite visit: soulbitefood.com To learn more about ILCS visit: ilcs.ca
FALL 2020
“Originally, we sold jam and pickles at farmers markets, with help from a group of mothers who happened to be very skillful in the kitchen,” says Igor Bjelac, Executive Director. “We then expanded to our now vegan comfort food. We’re passionate about the environment and that’s why we went with a vegan product.”
to fighting hunger and food waste. Igor and Ali donate 50% of profits from Soul bite towards ILCS and other charities.
CULTIVATE
People, Planet, Profit is the triple bottom line that passionate food entrepreneurs strive for. Soul Bite Food, offering vegan comfort food, is a social enterprise created last year to combat hunger, scale down food waste, and give new immigrants employment – the perfect trifecta.