Your monthly look into what's happening at the NH Food Bank.

Attached here and above, is the 4th quarter QSR for October through December 2023. This is due by January 31st. Included at the bottom of the QSR is an End of Year Agency Survey. This survey will help us to gather updated information about all programs to ensure we have your most recent data to use when assisting neighbors in finding a food assistance program in their area. If you have any questions while completing your QSR, please reach out to your NHFB Coordinator.

Also, 2023 year-end letters will be sent out later this month. These annual letters include information about your program's pounds and the Fair Market Value of the goods received from the NH Food Bank.

Indoor Shopping Is Back!

After years of having the shopping area outdoors, the NH Food Bank is excited to be able to bring the shopping area back inside the building. After a dry-run during the last week of December, we are moving forward with the process into the new year. Before you can utilize this shopping area, you are required to attend a short zoom session which focuses on safety and procedure. If you still have not attended a session, please reach out to your NHFB Coordinator to sign up for an upcoming date.

Ordering Reminders

Moving into the new year, we wanted to take a moment to remind you of a few things when placing orders on Agency Express.



• Please note that some items do have a cost when you are adding items to your shopping cart. The only items that have a fee are "Purchased items" (indicated with items numbers such as "PUR004", etc.), or prepared meals (for eligible agencies).

• At checkout, be sure to verify your items, quantities and pricing before submitting the order. We are not always able to remove or adjust items once an order is submitted. And requesting to do so also affects the processes in our warehouse.

• Changes cannot be made to orders within 48 hours of your appointment time. If you find something needs to be changed right after placing your order, we can usually do our best to try and help you. But if the order is already in process and is to be picked up within 48 hours, it is much harder for our team to make changes, and sometimes we are not able to.

• Please do your best to keep to your scheduled appointment time. Lately, there has been an uptick in the amount of agencies trying to reschedule their appointments, showing up late, or not showing up at all. The NH Food Bank warehouse only has a limited amount of open appointment times available each week, so rescheduling your appointment for a new time that works for you is not always an option. We will do our best to fit you in to open spots should they be available, but rescheduling may result in you being assigned to a time that may not be ideal for your staff/volunteers.

MealConnect Update!

Some exciting new updates for our Fresh Rescue agencies! Starting in January 2024, we will be adding new categories for you to be able to report!

For years, we've been limited to only bakery, dairy, produce, protein and salvage and it limited data on the types of donations our agencies were getting from the stores. When you all come back after ringing in the new year, you'll have these categories visible in your drop down menus.

New Agency Agreements

If you have been a partner agency of the NH Food Bank for many years, you will know that every 2 years (on even numbered years), we update our Agency Agreement and require all programs to submit updated Agreements with updated contact information. This process will happen again in 2024 as planned, but our team is going to take this opportunity to create a new Agency Handbook and digitize the process for you. This means the new Agreement will not be required from you until later in the year, whereas in the past it has been done in the first few months of the year. We appreciate your patience in allowing us to finalize these documents and we hope that our Agency Handbook will be a good resource for everyone.

All sessions are held online via Zoom.

To enroll in any upcoming session, please contact your Agency Relations Coordinator. A zoom link will be sent out prior to the class for those who signed up to attend.

New Shopper Orientation

Tuesday, January 8th @10am

Thursday, February 15th @10am

*If you have a new director for your program, our Training & Resource Coordinator can come to you to do in-person training.

• We look forward to this new year and what it may bring. We have some ideas and plans in motion to better serve our agencies. Stay tuned!