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Food bank’s vending machine program surpasses 25,000 meals since inception

August 27, 2026   ·   0 Comments

By Sam Odrowski

The Orangeville Food Bank’s community vending machine program has grown to three locations across Dufferin County, distributing more than 25,000 meals since its 2023 launch and drawing interest from food banks outside the region.

The machines, which offer meals and snacks prepared in the food bank’s community kitchen for 25 cents each, now operate at the Mill Street branch of the Orangeville Public Library and the Grand Valley Library. Since its launch, the program has expanded from one to three vending machines and now distributes roughly 11,000 snacks and meals per year.

The first machine was up and running in June 2023 at Orangeville Town Hall before moving to its permanent home at the Mill Street Library that November, following the branch’s renovation. Since then, the network has expanded twice over.

The program’s growth has caught the attention of food banks outside Dufferin County. Representatives from North York Harvest Food Bank recently visited Orangeville to learn how the model works.

“Our shift in focus became food to the people, not people to the food,” said Heather Hayes, executive director of the Orangeville Food Bank.

She said the vending machines are built on the same principle underpinning the food bank’s other community partnerships: removing any sense of division between who needs support and who doesn’t.

The 25-cent meals are available to everyone.

“We didn’t want an us versus them mentality,” Hayes said. “We wanted a we’re all us [mentality].”

Hayes said that philosophy shapes who the food bank hopes will use the machines.

“One of the things that we’ve noticed is people make an assumption that only certain kinds of people access the vending machine, or only certain people access the food bank,” Hayes said. “We now actually put out food for our volunteers and our staff, because food insecurity is something you can’t see in somebody.”

She said making the machines available to the wider community — not just food bank clients — has been central to reducing stigma.

“There are lots of great conversations that happen when all kinds of people come together to eat food together, whether it is sitting at a table or grabbing it from a vending machine,” Hayes said.

Laura Warner, CEO of the Orangeville Public Library, said the vending machine partnership was unlike anything she had encountered elsewhere in her career.

“The food bank vending machine is not something I’ve ever seen in another library I’ve worked in,” Warner said. “I love any opportunity where there are those relationships already with the community.”

Hayes said the vending machines complement the food bank’s broader mission of meeting people where they are, rather than requiring multiple trips across town.

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