A Fredericton organization plans to create the first perishable food rescue centre in Atlantic Canada.

Greener Village will process fresh foods at risk of waste and turn them into value-added frozen products.

CEO Alex Boyd said those products will then be distributed to more than 70 food-focused organizations throughout the province.

“We’re seeing record levels of client demand each and every month at our food bank alone and food banks across the province are seeing the same sort of increases to client demand,” Boyd said in a recent interview.

“It means that we really have to roll up our sleeves and think of how we can do things differently to continue to meet the need that we’re having now, to increase the quality of the food that is going to those food bank clients.”

Food banks across the province already work with local stores in their communities to take fresh foods that are destined for waste.

But Boyd said this initiative will allow them to collect donated food from other sources, including farmers, distributors, and trucking companies.

“This is a way for us to be able to ensure that no matter what the volume of the donation is, we’ll have the capacity with our food rescue centre to capture all of that food and continue to use it to help people instead of putting it into the waste,” he said.

Greener Village will work with its partners, Food Depot Alimentaire and Food Banks Canada, to ensure they can get food into the centre and to food banks throughout the province.

The organization has already fundraised $4.7 million of its $6.3-million campaign goal. That includes $985,000 announced by the province earlier in May.

Boyd said they hope to start construction in the fall and have the new centre up and running by this time in 2025.