British ColumbiaKelowna Food Swap is in its early days, but founder Rosemarie Stevenson is encouraging members to trade their homegrown and homemade foods in an effort to build community and help people deal with the rising cost of groceries. Kelowna Food Swap encourages members to trade homemade and homegrown foodCBC News · Posted: Oct 25, 2025 8:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 6 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 3 minutesItems like sourdough bread are popular trading items on the Kelowna Food Swap Facebook group. (Rosemarie Stevenson/Kelowna Food Swap)Rosemarie Stevenson was tickled when, one day, she came home to find little gifts from her neighbours — homegrown tomatoes or peaches — sitting on her doorstep. In return, she baked them some sourdough bread, and left it on their porches.Now, the avid baker has launched a group dedicated to trading food grown or made in peoples homes, in the name of sustainability and community. Kelowna Food Swap, which is in its early days with just 75 members on Facebook, is a place for people in the area to share and trade homemade or homegrown items such as jam, bread, pastries, fresh produce and eggs. WATCH | Growing Thanksgiving trimmings in your garden:How to grow next year’s Thanksgiving feast in your own gardenMaster gardener Brian Minter joins BC Today host Michelle Eliot to share tips for growing herbs, root vegetables and even cranberries for seasonal celebrations. Minter says “there’s so much possibility” for anyone looking to cater their next Thanksgiving with produce grown at home.In the group, people have offered quince, ginger cookies and pickled onions, among other things, while others have shared what they’re hoping someone else might have — walnuts or plums, for example. “The only rule is … I don’t want something that’s store-bought, because that’s not the initiative,” Stevenson told CBC’s Daybreak South. “I want them to have the home element into it.”The food swap group is one of many ways people are looking to share resources as the cost of living continues to skyrocket. For example, neighbourhood “Buy Nothing” groups exploded on Facebook during the COVID-19 pandemic — with the groups seeing people posting items they no longer needed in an effort to offer them to someone who could use them, and thereby keep items out of landfills. And food waste apps, like Too Good To Go and Flashfood, are growing in popularity as businesses look to sell surplus items at a discounted rate that would otherwise end up in the trash. WATCH | Winnipeg ‘Buy Nothing’ group becomes popular:Winnipeg neighbourhood ‘Buy Nothing’ groups grow in popularityManitobans are turning to social media groups to help ease financial worries as the cost of living rises.Similarly, Stevenson said her group alleviates the overabundance of items people make or grow.“Who wants to eat kale for weeks on end? You don’t,” she said. “But if you can produce that kale and you have a bumper crop and then you would trade it for something else, jam, baked goods or sourdough bread, I mean, it makes everybody happy.”In August, Canada’s grocery inflation rate rose 3.5 per cent compared to the same period last year, and last month Food Banks Canada reported a quarter of Canadians are struggling with food insecurity.Eventually, Stevenson said she’d like the social media group to turn into an in-person event, where people bring a basket full of the items they make or grow, swap with folks and leave with a basket full of different items. “I love people,” she said. “I like that personal interaction.”With files from Natalie Stechyson and Daybreak South
How this B.C. food swap group helps community as the cost of living rises
