There are now more organizations across Canada giving out food than there are grocery stores.
That’s one of the findings in the most recent study by Second Harvest.
Executive Director Laura Nikkel says there are more than 61,000 organizations and agencies providing food compared to only 15,000 grocery stores in Canada.
“I was shocked by the sheer volume of charitable organizations that are providing food at no or low cost,” explains Nikkel.
“Food that would often be unavailable to people or their families. This is Canada’s invisible food network.”
Dr. Martin Gooch helped conduct the study for Second Harvest and says the COVID-19 pandemic increased the number of people seeking food from these community organizations.
“15 percent of those were not supplying food to vulnerable populations pre-COVID. They reacted in weeks. A number of those organizations went from serving no one food to serving hundreds of people with food.”
The survey shows that there was a 72 percent increase in people using food banks last year.
