Toronto/CMEDIA: Amid reportedly Ontario’s skyrocketing grocery prices and with the growing number of people in need, the food bank system in the province is no longer sustainable.
It was reported by Food Banks Canada’s The HungerCount report released on Monday that over 760,000 unique individuals accessed food banks monthly in Ontario between 2023 and 2024, a 125 percent increase in food bank use since 2019.
“It just speaks to how many folks in the most populous province in Canada are struggling…The system was designed to be a temporary support for people who fell on tough times…were never designed to be a backbone of the social safety net,” Food Banks Canada CEO Kirstin Beardsley was reported to say.
Nearly 2.2 million monthly visits across the country in March 2025, the report stated, was an increase by five percent to March 2024 and nearly double since March 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Of the people relying on food banks for sustenance in Ontario of several different income backgrounds, fourteen percent visited food banks with reported employment as their main source of income, 20.4 percent of users are on social assistance, 20.9 percent have no income and 19.9 percent have disability-related income support.
“We have seen significant growth in the number of people who have jobs and are using food banks. People, who at the end of the month, just don’t have the income in order to pay for all their essentials…We are also seeing growth in the number of dual parent families…also seeing a growth in the number of seniors who rely on food bank use…These are folks on fixed incomes, and their fixed incomes are just no longer able to make ends meet,” Beardsley said.
According to a Statistics Canada report annual inflation accelerated to 2.4 percent last month, while food inflation outpaced it at four percent.
With income levels not keeping up with costs, Beardsley said that the “gap is just growing” and added that Food banks are at a breaking point as they cannot keep up with the demand.
“Food banks have had to reduce the amount of food they give out. Many have run out of food to give out before they meet the full demand. A system of community organizations can’t just absorb the infinite growth…When you continue to see the number of people who need the food bank system grow, the risk is that the food bank system will have to say, ‘sorry we don’t have enough food for you and then what will people do?…We are seeing people spend a significant of portion of their income on housing…folks are spending 70 percent on average of their income on just paying the rent each month they are already struggling and relying on community organizations…It’s heartbreaking when you think about kids who are needing to rely on food banks…When they don’t have enough food to eat, they are not at their best. It’s the most heartbreaking stat,” Beardsley said.
Of about 31.5 percent of people served in Ontario food banks, 228,689 children visited food banks monthly in the province, the report noted.
The federal government is being called by Food Banks Canada to take immediate action on the issue and stop people from falling into poverty after losing their jobs.
