Iqaluit food centre gets $675,000 to build country food store

Grant going to Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre is part of international funding challenge to address food insecurity

Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre’s executive director Rachel Blais stands by the centre’s kitchen. Qajuqturvik is the recipient of a grant for approximately $675,000 from the Citi Foundation to address food insecurity. Qajuqturvik plans to use the money to open a pay-what-you-can country food/bulk food store. (File photo by Mélanie Ritchot)

By Nunatsiaq News

Iqaluit’s Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre has won a $675,000 grant to help open a country food and bulk food grocery store.

The store will operate on a pay what-you-can basis.

The food centre is one of 50 recipients from Citi Foundation’s inaugural Global Innovation Challenge, according to CitiBank Canada, which announced the winners Monday in a news release.

The purpose of the challenge is for organizations to come up with innovative ways to address food security and help low-income families and communities.

Citi Foundation gave nearly $34 million total as part of the challenge. Qajuqturvik was one of more than 1,000 submissions from 80 countries.

“This grant will support [Qajuqturvik] as we strive to address increasing food insecurity rates by creating new sources of good, affordable food for Iqalummiut and supporting more hunters across Nunavut,” said Rachel Blais, executive director of Qajuqturvik, in the release.

Blais added in the release that Qajuqturvik serves close to 500 meals a day for lunch, and that number is increasing with inflation and post-COVID-19-pandemic effects.

Qajuqturvik will receive the grant funding over two years.

 

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(4) Comments:

  1. Posted by S on

    Why weird a mask in a press-release photo?

    The cost of building a processing plant in Iqaluit to handle country food to Territorial food-inspection standards for retail distribution would be in the tens (if not hundreds) of million dollars. And, where will they build it? How will they staff it?

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    • Posted by Eyes and ears on

      Excuse me of your post and better to get your thoughts straight,
      You do not need CFIA to kick in when you buy country food from Nunavut stays in Nunavut does not necessarily need inspection to be dealt with none,
      We hunters don’t just sell any country food that does not look healthy at all.

      Eyes and ears harvester

  2. Posted by wtf on

    So strange. The comments that appear when I open this article on my phone are completely different than the one I see here on my PC’s browser…

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    • Posted by I don’t on

      It’s the same two comments for me on mobile and PC. I have noticed that their website cev has been doing some changes and sprucing things up a bit. Maybe there are some bugs in the system sometimes that show you the comments from a different article under this one?

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