A community fridge in Winnipeg’s West End neighbourhood. (Photo: Shannon VanRaes)

This story is part of a special report on the effects of inflation on social purpose organizations and the communities they serve. Stay tuned for more reporting on this. 

WINNIPEG – Empty, is the usual state of John Brook’s apartment kitchen in Winnipeg’s West End neighbourhood.

“I try not to eat garbage, but I don’t have anything else to select from, not anything affordable anyways,” says the 56-year-old, who relies on monthly hampers from a local food bank to make ends meet. 

Brook would like to reduce the amount of carbohydrates he consumes and cut back on processed foods, particularly sugar and salt laden breads, but says he can’t afford to. Fruits and vegetables only enter his diet when his local grocer slaps a “50 per cent off” sticker on them.

“I’m not a master chef, I’m not given to wanting to cook, but I cook as a necessity,” says Brook. “Just to get the stuff down, I need to try to make it taste interesting.”

One of his go-to foods is shrink-wrapped ground turkey; four tubes come in each package and, if carefully divided, he can eek out 12 burgers for $10. Condiments are usually out of reach, but rice and lentils are a healthy substitute for buns and ketchup, he says.

But as challenging as his current situation is, Brook worries the cost of food will continue to rise in the coming weeks and months — and he’s not alone.

Driven by geopolitical events and pandemic malaise, food inflation reached a 41-year-high of 11.4 per cent this September, outpacing general inflation by 4.5 per cent and leaving policy makers searching for solutions to complex and growing problems. Visits to food banks have increased 35 per cent nation-wide since 2019.

Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of the AgriFood Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, doesn’t see any short-term relief in sight. He notes food inflation has outpaced general inflation for the last 13 months.

“Food prices have always been more volatile and I do think that food is also inherently more vulnerable to macroeconomic factors,” says Charlebois. “You have to keep in mind that the nature of food distribution is very much about high volume and low margins, so there’s not a whole lot of space to maneuver when things really shift quickly.”

High energy prices, largely the result of Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, have been a significant driver of commodity prices, which in turn increase the cost of food, he says. 

A recent Ipsos poll, commissioned by CanadaHelps, found 22 per cent of Canadians plan to access charitable services over the next six months — up from 14 per cent last January — just to meet basic needs, including food.

But increased demand is only half of the problem organizations like food banks, meal programs and community kitchens are currently facing. As the cost-of-living increases, donations have also decreased; Canadians are stretched thin and disposable income is in short supply.

A survey released by the Angus Reid Institute this fall found 27 per cent of respondents planned to cut back on charitable donations as a direct result of inflation. And according to CanadaHelps, 65 per cent of charities believe inflation has decreased donations from individual Canadians.

Breakfast Club Canada is one of the many organizations feeling the pinch.

“Our fundraising remains less successful than we had expected,” said Ryan Baker, the charity’s senior program advisor. “If we don’t, as an organization, continue to turn that around, there could be real impacts for kids across the country.”

The national non-profit funds breakfast programs in every province and territory, supporting nearly 3,600 schools and providing almost 600,000 meals each day. But another 720 schools remain on stand-by.

“Our wait-list has grown significantly over the last 12 months,” says Baker. The last thing any organization wants to do is reduce grants to existing programs, but balancing increased demand with reduced revenue is a challenge, he adds.

It’s a balancing act that’s become far too familiar to non-profits of all sizes and shapes, but particularly those that provide food aid.

The Ontario Khalsa Darbar, a Sikh temple in Mississauga better known as the Dixie Gurdwara, serves about 1,000 meals every weekday and an additional 10,000, give or take, on weekends. Most congregants who come for langar — a meal offered free to anyone of any faith, creed, caste or gender — come for devotion and fellowship, but there’s also been an uptick in the number of international students visiting the communal kitchen.

“International students who come here, they’re not maybe in a position to spend as much on food, then they might visit more often so they can have at least one good meal a day,” says the gurdwara’s director of community outreach, Harmanpreet Singh.

But higher food costs mean the gurdwara has had to shuffle funding and find innovative ways of cutting down on waste, especially as inflationary pressures leave people with less discretionary income for religious offerings.

“Obviously, in tougher times, they’ll give less, right? Because their own resources are strained,” says Singh.

But no organizations are closer to the front lines of what many are calling a crisis of affordability than food banks.

“Canada’s food banks are facing uncharted challenges as turbulent economic conditions continue to exacerbate and deepen systemic inequities, especially for employed people earning low incomes, students and seniors on fixed incomes,” says Food Banks Canada CEO, Kirstin Beardsley.

One third of all food bank clients are currently children, according to a report released by the organization this fall. HungerCount 2022 also found the number of students and seniors using food banks had increased across the country. The top three reasons? High food costs, low provincial social assistance rates and housing expenses.

More Canadians now rely on food banks than at any other time in Canadian history, according to Food Banks Canada’s annual Hunger Report.

At Harvest Manitoba, a food bank working with 360 agencies province-wide — including those in rural and remote communities, as well as some First Nations — demand for food hampers has gone up 40 per cent in the last 12 months.

“We’re seeing that demand in Winnipeg’s inner city, we’re seeing it in the suburbs, we’re seeing it in rural towns, we’re seeing it in the north, we’re seeing it everywhere,” says Harvest Manitoba’s CEO, Vince Barletta. “And the big story is inflation, rising prices for just about everything we buy — food and fuel — which takes a big chunk out of the budget of a lot of Manitobans and particularly low-income Manitobans.”

Food donations have also fallen over the last year, he says, but so far cash donations have allowed them to make up the difference. That could change as economic uncertainty grows.

“If there’s, heaven forbid, another 40 per cent increase or these trends continue … there’s a breaking point for organizations. How much capacity do you have organizationally to keep meeting growing demand?”

Some people are turning to small acts of kindness to off-set hunger. Back in John Brook’s neighbourhood, people with extra food have taken to leaving items in cardboard boxes near their doors for neighbours in need.

And a few blocks away, a “grassroots collective of passionate Winnipeggers” has installed a community fridge on a small laneway next to garden allotments. People are invited to take or leave food items, as well as pet and hygiene products.

A woman asking to be called “Bernice” shouts with joy after finding someone has left red peppers in the fridge. From the adjoining cupboard, she picks up a small bag of rice and slips it into her parka pocket.

“It’s been about forever,” says the grandmother, who works full-time in retail, but can’t always afford fresh produce. Before the pandemic, her two adult children would help her out with groceries, but now they’re also struggling to afford the basics.

“And I’m not taking food away from my grandbabies,” she states emphatically.

At Breakfast Club Canada, Baker says the crunch has the charity searching out new stakeholders, who can support its programs with time, donations in-kind or additional funding.

“This year has really pushed us forward in terms of trying to work with communities and to be present in the communities as much as possible,” Baker says. “Our coordinators are really working with schools to try and find more sustainable or more community-based food access models to help reduce the cost or improve the quality.”

Likewise, at the Dixie Gurdwara, changes have been made to further cut down on waste as food prices climb.

“We try to be very exact in terms of estimating our numbers on any given day, if we know what programs are happening, we try to get an estimate,” Singh says. If more food is needed, it’s prepared by volunteers on standby. 

Barletta notes that increasing demand for food assistance also creates organizational demands; more volunteers, more trucks, more fuel, more staff and more space are required. “We’re actually running up against the physical limitations of our building,” he says.

Sherri Hanley, director of policy and community action at Community Food Centres Canada, says the only way to turn the tide is to address the root causes of hunger. 

“It’s not that there’s a shortage of food, it’s that there’s a shortage of funding for people to actually purchase food,” says Hanley. The ultimate solution is higher wages and a stronger social safety network — something that can’t happen unless the federal government gets onboard.

Advocacy led by those with lived experience, is key to mobilizing for change, she says.

Community Food Centres Canada is calling for a top-up to the Canada Worker Benefit and the creation of a “working age supplement” that would provide a guaranteed income for younger Canadians. The charity also wants to see governments index social assistance programs to inflation.

“We’re seeing more workers coming through our centres,” Hanley says. “People who are working low wage, precarious jobs, not being able to afford food and making some tough decisions. So, we’re looking for the federal government in particular right now, to step up and invest in working age people.”

Harmful and anachronistic stereotypes continue to inform public policy, she says. The idea people need to just “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” has resulted in meager and punitive social assistance programs intended to incentivize recipients to work.

Current social assistance programs also fail to address barriers like systemic racism, intergenerational trauma and colonialism, she adds.

“The reality is there’s a mismatch right now between the labour market and social programs,” Hanley says. “These programs were created to kind of be like a little band-aid to get you by for a month or so, and then you get a job. But the reality is that the labour market has shifted.”

Brook counts himself as one of the lucky ones, but the margins are slim. “I’m on disability, which means I get slightly more than most people on welfare,” he says bluntly.

Barletta notes stagnant wages are also contributing to the growing demand for food assistance, as inflation drives down the real-world earnings and decreases purchasing power.

“The root of the challenge is that the incomes of many, many Manitobans are simply not sufficient to maintain a dignified standard of life,” he says. “And housing costs are a part of that, food costs are a part of that, transportation costs are a part of that, healthcare needs, other challenges are a part of that too.”

And according to Food Banks Canada, Manitoba is not an outlier. Nation-wide, people are struggling to balance costs and income, striving to find dignified solutions to hunger.

Many are also questioning the role of big business in driving up the cost of food, particularly over the last few years as the world struggled to cope with the global pandemic. In October, the Canadian Competition Bureau announced it would study the issue, looking at how “changing competitive dynamics” are affecting grocery pricing.

The role of consolidation and corporate greed cannot be ignored when looking at rising food costs, says Inez Hillel, an Ottawa-based economist and co-founder of Vivic Research. Mergers and acquisitions have consolidated Canada’s food industry and significantly reduced competition, she says.

“The inflation that we’re seeing right now in grocery stores and stuff like that, that can be prevented with a stronger competition act, but that would have to be done at the federal level,” Hillel says. Tougher regulations and less consolidation could lead to price competition and lower consumer costs. 

The House of Commons Agriculture Committee will also investigate grocery store profits in the coming weeks and has called on the leaders of Canada’s biggest grocery chains to testify before them. Among them will be the head of Loblaws, a company who’s earnings reportedly jumped by $121 million over the pandemic.

Like Hanley, Beardsley stresses addressing hunger requires a multifaceted approach, one targeting the root causes of food insecurity — low incomes and poverty — in addition to the skyrocketing cost of living. 

“Ending hunger in Canada is possible,” she says. “We need to work together to make true and lasting change by pursuing a dual focus strategy that creates a minimum income floor for our most vulnerable populations, while working to address affordable housing, EI reform and new supports for Northern and remote parts of Canada.” 

Back in Winnipeg, John Brook plans out his next meals and looks ahead to the Christmas season. Before the pandemic, he received holiday hampers; last year he got a $30 gift card for a local grocery store, something that won’t go very far with prices where they currently are.

“I don’t think the prices will ever come back down now,” says Brook. “So having money to buy food is really important.”

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