4 Second Harvest delivery trucks vandalized on New Year's Day, hindering operations: official

A charity that describes itself as Canada's largest food rescue organization says four of its trucks were vandalized on New Year's Day, hindering its ability to deliver food to those in need.

Duncan Salisbury, vice-president of supply chain and logistics for Second Harvest, said water was found in the fuel of the four trucks, which make up nearly a quarter of its fleet.

Two of those trucks were unable to leave the organization's parking lot in Etobicoke on Monday, and two others broke down on major highways.

Security camera footage from early Jan. 1 shows a person near each of the vehicles.

"We reviewed the footage and found that on New Year’s Day very early in the morning someone came through our lot and was around each of the vehicles that had problems," Salisbury said on Wednesday.

Vandalism 'disappointing,' official says

Second Harvest collects unsold surplus food from businesses and redistributes it to non-profit organizations.

Salisbury said the vandalism had big impact on operations, forcing the organization to cancel deliveries to 29 charities, which in turn deliver the food to families in need.

"That’s 20,000 pounds of food that didn’t make it out to people that need it that day," he said.

Salisbury said the incident was "disappointing" and he has no idea why someone would want to hinder the charity's operations.

He said the organization has rented trucks while the vandalized trucks are being repaired.

"We've had to do a lot of juggling. We're relying on some rental assets to get the job done and we're doing the best we can," he said.

Second Harvest has filed a police report about the vandalism, but has not yet heard back about the investigation.

Toronto police said in an email on Wednesday a report was filed about mischief to vehicles on Tuesday.

"The investigation is in its early stages and officers are looking into the matter," Laurie McCann, spokesperson for the Toronto Police Service, said in the email.

McCann said she could not confirm that the vehicles had been tampered with.