More Ontarians relying on food banks, new ‘heartbreaking’ data shows

A volunteer works in the storeroom of St. Philip Neri’s Table Food Bank at St. Philip Neri Church in Toronto on Friday, Oct. 25, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

The food bank system in Ontario is no longer sustainable, a new report warns as the number of people in need grows amid skyrocketing grocery prices.

Food Banks Canada’s The HungerCount report released on Monday reported over 760,000 unique individuals accessed food banks monthly in Ontario between 2023 and 2024, which marks a 125 per cent increase in food bank use since 2019 — the fastest growth the organization has ever seen.

“It just speaks to how many folks in the most populous province in Canada are struggling to make ends meet and the trends look similar across the country,” Food Banks Canada CEO Kirstin Beardsley told CTV News Toronto on Monday.

“The system was designed to be a temporary support for people who fell on tough times, it wasn’t meant to be a place for people to go every month because they simply can’t make it any other way.”

“Food banks were never designed to be a backbone of the social safety net.”

The report stated that across the country, monthly visits neared 2.2 million in March 2025 — five per cent higher than March 2024 and nearly double since March 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

People relying on food banks for sustenance in Ontario come from several different income backgrounds, the report found. Fourteen per cent of people in Ontario who visited food banks reported employment as their main source of income. The report found 20.4 per cent of users are on social assistance, 20.9 per cent have no income and 19.9 per cent 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,” Beardsley said.

“We are also seeing growth in the number of dual parent families, and we are also seeing a growth in the number of seniors who rely on food bank use. That’s a pretty scary indicator. These are folks on fixed incomes, and their fixed incomes are just no longer able to make ends meet.”

‘A crisis I don’t want to see’

Statistics Canada reported that annual inflation accelerated to 2.4 per cent last month, while food inflation outpaced it at four per cent. The agency also noted the cost of fresh vegetables rose nearly two per cent, the cost of sugar increased by nine per cent and fresh or frozen meat jumped 11.5 per cent.

Beardsley said income levels are not keeping up with costs and the “gap is just growing.” Food banks, she added, cannot keep up with the demand and are at a breaking point.

“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 out the full demand. A system of community organizations can’t just absorb the infinite growth,” she said.

“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?’ It’s a crisis I don’t want to see.”

Most people relying on food banks in Ontario are renting in the mainstream rental market, where prices have skyrocketed in recent years. The average two-bedroom apartment in major cities like Toronto currently costs $2,690, according to Statistics Canada.

“In Ontario, we are seeing folks, in places where costs of things like rent are higher, have higher rates of food bank use,” Beardsley said. “We are seeing people spend a significant of portion of their income on housing. If folks are spending 70 per cent on average of their income on just paying the rent each month they are already struggling and relying on community organizations.”

The report found that people with the lowest incomes, which includes people receiving provincial social assistance, spend 66 per cent of their disposable income on housing. In 2021, that figure was 49 per cent.

About 31.5 per cent of people served in Ontario food banks monthly were children. The reported noted that 228,689 children visited food banks monthly in the province.

“It’s heartbreaking when you think about kids who are needing to rely on food banks. It’s this idea that what does that mean for the future of the country when kids go to school hungry. When they don’t have enough food to eat, they are not at their best. It’s the most heartbreaking stat,” Beardsley said.

Food Banks Canada is calling on the federal government to take immediate action on the issue by developing a grocery and essentials benefit for people and reforming employment insurance to stop people from falling into poverty after losing their jobs.

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