How Manitoba Food Processor LA Quality Products Is Helping Move Good Food to Communities Across Canada

“If you think about it, there’s not a farmer out there who grows a crop so they can get rid of it because it’s not perfect,” Karin Arendse shared.

Karin and Lourens Arendse, who have been farming together for more than 40 years, are the owners of LA Quality Products, a farm and food processor in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. Working closely with growers across the province, LA Quality Products helps sort, store, pack and distribute produce at scale, making them an important link between farms and communities — and a key partner in food rescue.

Over decades in agriculture, Karin and Lourens have seen firsthand how much good food goes uneaten simply because it doesn’t meet cosmetic standards for retail stores.

“It’s kind of a contradiction that there is product to be donated and at the same time, people can’t get the food that they need,” Karin said. “There’s a need and it’s important to ask how we can help fulfil that need.”

LA Quality Products began working with Second Harvest in August 2025 as food rescue efforts expanded across Manitoba. In just the first few months of the partnership, more than one million lbs of surplus produce moved through their facility to communities across Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Nunavut, including Northern and fly-in communities.

The company also offered Second Harvest storage capacity for 500,000 lbs of produce, making it easier for farmers to donate bulk surplus produce. The team grades, stores and repacks donations into formats that are easier for organizations and communities to receive and distribute.

“The flexibility factor that we can deliver is important,” Lourens explained. “It’s a big benefit to the people that receive the donations because it’s a lot easier to ship and divvy up.”

That flexibility is especially important for remote communities. The team organizes mixed pallets with combinations like 50 lb-bags of potatoes alongside 25 lb-bags of onions and carrots, making shipments easier to distribute once they arrive.

“Everything gets scaled,” said David Robichaud, Manager at LA Quality Products. “Every bag gets scaled to make sure we don’t go over in weight, especially for fly-in communities.”

David oversees scheduling, sorting, packing and temperature-controlled storage to help ensure produce arrives in good condition.

“Second Harvest makes it easy for us,” he said. “The relationship we built from the get-go has been easy, simple. It’s a great thing to get the food out to families and communities.”

Much of the produce organized for food rescue is rejected by retailers for not meeting cosmetic standards, despite naturally coming in all shapes and sizes.  

“The stores don’t want it, but for us it’s an enormous gift,” Lourens shared, estimating that about 95 per cent of the off-grade produce they receive is still excellent quality. “These are Manitoba-grown carrots which are known for very good flavour. They may not look as nice but they taste better.”

“Growers around here are quite happy that their off-grade is finding a market,” Lourens added. He gave the example of a local onion grower who experienced a tough season, with onion bulbs beginning to partially turn green — a sign the onions had been in the field longer than usual and were getting ready to sprout, though they remained perfectly edible.

“They were very, very happy that they didn’t have to dump their product, which is perfectly good,” Lourens said. “It’s just a shame to see that this product would have stayed in the field if there hadn’t been another outlet for it.”

Since joining Second Harvest’s food rescue network, LA Quality Products has processed more than 3.5 million lbs of potatoes, carrots, onions and squash for donation. But for the team at LA Quality Products, the partnership is about more than logistics.

“I think we’re all in the business of trying to make the world a better place, and that starts with doing what you can with what’s around you,” Lourens said. “With Canada being such a large country, there’s so much opportunity to do more.”