New app aims to relieve food insecurity in B.C. amid skyrocketing grocery prices

As B.C. families continue to feel the pinch amid soaring food prices, a new app hopes to ease the struggle for individuals as well as organizations and businesses trying to help.

The United Way developed FoodLink, an app that connects food suppliers with non-profit organizations to get food delivered to families in need. 

Organizations can use it to put in requests for items needed, suppliers respond, and volunteers will then be assigned to deliver them. 

"It really allows us to go in and help communities to link available food with where exactly it's needed," United Way B.C. community food manager Alžběta Sabová said.

"It's been a huge gap in our communities to understand where the need exactly is, who are those people in communities that need support at any given time." 

She said there's been a recent increase in families needing support when it comes to accessing food. According to Sabová, approximately 14 per cent of families in B.C. are food insecure, and in rural and remote areas, it could be up to 40 per cent.

"Usually, food costs are the first cost that families cut down if there is a need," she said.

However, she said, there is enough food to go around. It's just a matter of connecting and co-ordinating with suppliers, organizations and individuals.

The service is currently running in Surrey, the Upper Fraser Valley and the North Okanagan. The United Way says it hopes to have the app up and running B.C.-wide by 2025.

Cost of food expected to continue climbing

It's hard not to notice the cost of groceries these days. 

In 2021, Canada's Food Price Report — an annual publication by Canadian researchers that looks at factors across the supply chain to attempt to predict what the cost of putting food on the table will be — estimated that Canadians would pay five to seven per cent more for food in 2022. 

Turns out, costs actually exceeded that prediction. 

Food prices were up about 10.3 per cent across Canada as of September 2022, according to the latest report. B.C. saw the smallest increase at 9.2 per cent — still well above the estimated seven per cent.

The latest report suggests prices will climb another five to seven per cent this year, which could bump grocery bills by hundreds of dollars. 

Sylvain Charlebois, the director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, said we're in the midst of the worst price increases right now and expects things to calm down by summer. 

"We are looking at macroeconomic factors like supply chain problems," he said.

"Of course, the whole issue of climate change really has impacted the planet. In our case, California has been a problem for us and parts of Mexico as well."

He said the two categories of food expected to increase the most are baked goods and dairy.