Ugly Potato Day in Surrey

Ugly Potato Day is a great event in Surrey where local farms give away produce for free to fight food waste and ensure fewer people go to bed hungry.

The event takes place on Saturday, August 8th in 2026.

Surrey’s Ugly Potato Day

Ugly Potato Day began in 2022 at Heppell’s Farm which is a massive farm in Surrey that has produced large quantities of food (primarily potatoes) for over a century. The event now happens at the Cloverdale Fairgrounds.

Ugly Potato Day aims to reduce food waste. Supermarkets don’t buy produce that’s deemed “ugly,” whether due to blemishes or imperfect shapes. So plenty of farms end up throwing away food that is perfectly edible and nutritious.

Over its first two years, Heppell’s Farm hosted 14 Ugly Potato Days at different times of the year. Shoppers showed up to the farm and could load up their bags with free food, including potatoes, carrots and squash.

The event soon got so big that it outgrew the farm. In 2024, Ugly Potato Day took place at the Cloverdale Fairgrounds, with 12 farms contributing food to the event. In 2025, more than 20 local farms participated.

It’s estimated that over 10,000 people attended the event in the early years, and there was as much as 150,000 pounds of produce. Last year though, more than 20,000 people attended and almost half a million pounds of food was distributed. Organizers hope to break that record in 2026.

This year’s event is presented by Odd Bunch, a fast-growing Canadian produce delivery company focused on rescuing imperfect fruits and vegetables.

Where and When?

The last couple of years Ugly Potato Day has happened at the Cloverdale Fairgrounds, which is a little under an hour’s drive from downtown Vancouver. The address for the fairgrounds is 17905 62 Avenue in Surrey.

The event returns on August 8th in 2026 and runs from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm. The location is again at the Cloverdale Rodeo and Exhibition Grounds and the event is free to attend, but you need free tickets. These can be found on the Ugly Potato Day webpage.

Ugly Potato Day

What to Expect

Ugly Potato Day is like a Farmers Market, except everything is free. Large containers of food are opened up and everyone is welcome to show up and fill their bags with fresh, local (and yes, ugly) produce. There are potatoes, beets, cabbage, carrots, apples, bread, squash, parsnips and more.

There’s usually a DJ playing music and a couple of food trucks on-site as well. The event can get crowded, but more than enough food is provided for everyone. Ugly Potato Day also benefits local food banks. It’s a great local initiative.

The 2025 event also aimed to earn a new Guinness World Record by distributing over 500,000 pounds of produce to surpass the current record of 495,000 pounds held by Sacramento in 2016. It looks like they came close to breaking that record – let’s see how they do in 2026!

Ten Servings Co.

Tyler Heppell spearheads Ugly Potato Day. He created the organization, Ten Servings Co., to fight against food waste and so decrease the number of people in BC who go to bed hungry.

Since its founding, Ten Servings has donated hundreds of thousands of servings of food to local food banks, run Ugly Potato Day, and helped create similar events in other places in North America.