Ontario food banks forced to provide less food as demand increases, new report says
About 40% of food banks surveyed say they’ve had to reduce amount of food they provide
Nearly 40 per cent of Ontario food banks have reduced the amount of food they provide to clients as they struggle to keep up with escalating demand, a new report says.
The report from Feed Ontario — a network of more than 1,200 food banks and hunger relief programs in the province —also says number of people who accessed a food bank in Ontario surpassed one million from 2023 to 2024, a 25 per cent increase from the year prior.
The report looks at data from Ontario's food banks from April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024.
"While food banks are doing their best to keep doors open and shelves full, the unprecedented need for food bank support has outpaced their capacity and the resources available to deliver these services," the report says.
Two in five respondents who visited a food bank had never accessed one before, the report says.
Neil Hetherington, CEO of the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto, said that organization recently implemented a 10-per cent reduction in the amount of food distributed across its network of meal programs due to the unprecedented demand.
The organization supports 129 agencies and 205 food programs across the city.
"It means that an individual who's going in to get three days worth of food once per week is now going to be receiving 2.7 days worth of food," he said.
The recent Who's Hungry report the from Daily Bread and North York Harvest food banks found the number of visits to food banks in Toronto hit a new record once again, with one million more visits from April 2023 to April 2024 than the year prior.
Ontario food banks also saw an increase in the number of clients who said they were employed, according to the Feed Ontario report.
While social assistance remains the primary source of income for the majority of food bank visitors, just under 24 per cent of respondents said they were employed — a 17 per cent increase from the year before.
Hetherington said that figure is troubling.
"They've done everything right, yet they have to rely on food charity," said Hetherington.
Hetherington said the numbers how that governments can't rely on food banks "as the sole solution to systemic problems."
"There are more than one million Ontarians who are going to food banks, and every single time they're going, we know it's because of a lack of affordable housing, it's because their incomes do not match their expenses," he said.
"And we know the solutions to that and we're very hopeful that they'll start to implement them."
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With files from Clara Pasieka