The same team behind the city's first pay-what-you-can grocery store is opening up a PWYC soup bar at Humber College at the end of the month, meaning students no longer need to study while hangry and broke.

The community food program Feed It Forward (FIF) will start serving soups, stews, and fresh-baked bread to students at Humber's North Campus on September 25, using rescued produce and leftover ingredients from the college's culinary program. 

FIF's soup bar, which is run by Chef Jagger Gordon, the executive chef of Humber's culinary program, will offer two to four items, with options rotating every week. 

Partnering with companies around the city, FIF's culinary interns and volunteers will source landfill-destined ingredients from grocers like the Whole Foods Market in Yorkville, Fresh Co. in Scarborough and local bakeries like Fred's Bread and Cob's.

Chefs will use these ingredients to cook up nutritious meals like bone marrow soup and Indian dahl. Offering meat, veggie, and vegan options, Gordon says it will start off operating two days a week before hopefully going on to operate on more days.

“We noticed the large amount of students that are struggling with food insecurities," says Gordon."By addressing that, this is a way to fill up their bellies." 

FIF has been operating for several years as a community food program dedicated to keeping food away from landfills. Gordon's first Soup Bar opened up in a shipping container at Dundas West's Market 707 in May 2017, but was evicted earlier this year.

He's since expanded with similar endeavours at U of T and with the Feed It Forward grocery store, which opened a couple of months ago and which Gordon claims to be the first PWYC grocer in the world. 

There's no minimum as to what Humber students can pay to get a hearty meal at the soup bar once it opens, meaning they can save their dollars to pay for more important things like books and ever-looming OSAP bills.