Food Bank Awarded Loan for Expansion

Food Share Inc., the official food bank for Ventura County, has been awarded a $107,500 loan from the state Integrated Waste Management Board to help expand its Oxnard-based operation.

“What we do at Food Share is take food [from local restaurants, processors and grocery stores] that would otherwise be wasted. We collect it, store it and then distribute it to those who need help,” Food Share Executive Director Jim Mangis said.

The loan will be used to build a 50,000-cubic-foot refrigeration unit at Food Share’s new warehouse on North South Bank Road in Oxnard. The warehouse is big enough to hold 10 semitrailer loads of food.

“We’ll be able to take more perishable food from stores and packinghouses. The food reaches a certain point and if it isn’t used it has to be dumped,” Mangis said.

“Right now we have to turn down a lot of food that’s fresh or frozen because we can’t afford to pay commercial storage rates. The new refrigerator/freezer unit means there will be an additional 55 tons of food that we will be able to rescue each year,” Mangis said.

Once the refrigeration unit is working, Food Share will be able to divert 216 tons of food into the hands of the needy each year. Those 216 tons would otherwise end up in a landfill.

Food Share has 10 years to pay back the loan, which has an interest rate of 5.5%, but Mangis expects to have it paid off sooner than that.