Lohja food aid group’s five-euro fee prompts questions

A private charity in Lohja asks people collecting surplus-food bags for a voluntary five-euro payment, a practice that has caused confusion and led one local shopkeeper to stop donating food, Yle reports.

The Pidähuolta association provides food aid to people on low incomes three days a week. Its distribution point is in a former bank in the Virkkala neighbourhood, alongside a surplus-food café and a flea market. The food comes from six nearby shops.

Founder Laila Janhunen says the payments cover fuel for collecting the donated food. The association has offered food aid in Lohja since 2020 and has collected money for fuel at distributions for about three years. Janhunen says people are never required to pay.

Other food aid providers in the area do not charge recipients. The largest, run by the Lohja Pentecostal congregation, uses donations from several religious communities and other organisations. A local unemployed people’s association covers its costs with donations and income from small jobs carried out by unemployed people.

One shopkeeper who donates surplus food told Yle that customers had contacted them about Pidähuolta’s practice. The shopkeeper later said they had stopped donating to the association.

The Finnish Food Authority’s guidance allows a nominal charge for food aid but says donated food cannot be used for commercial activity. Local food control officials can assess whether an operation qualifies as food aid or meets the criteria for professional activity, including its income, scale, openness and purpose.

Janhunen says the association receives no regular public or other grants and that demand has grown considerably this autumn, with more than 100 people collecting food on the busiest days. She says anyone unable to pay can still receive food.

Food aid in Lohja also includes surplus food from schools. The Kotimaanapu network, which provides assistance through the diaconal work of Finland’s Evangelical Lutheran congregations, says food aid should no longer depend on shops’ surplus food.