I wouldn’t be shocked to stumble upon a $10 banana at the open-til-late Metro in my neighbourhood or at the artfully arranged organic section of a higher-end Loblaws.
And while grocery prices have (sometimes wild) discrepancies across different stores, it’s undeniable that food has become expensive in our city.
Prices for store-bought food have increased 18.4 per cent between 2021 and 2023, according to the Ontario consumer price index. This year, food prices Canada-wide are estimated to increase an additional three to five per cent, according to the 2025 Food Price Report — and we can definitely feel it.
Food prices are expected to increase further if the announced 25 per cent tariffs on American goods (and the tariffs on Canadian exports to the U.S.) are resumed. This has prompted Canadians across the country to shop local and refrain from purchasing American food products.
Food access was one of the top five issues brought up by community members surveyed by The Green Line last summer at our engagement outpost at Scadding Court Community Centre.
What’s more, the city is seeing unprecedented numbers when it comes to food bank usage. Food banks in Toronto had a record-breaking 3.49 million visits by clients between April 2023 and March 2024, according to the 2024 Who’s Hungry Report.
That’s just the tip of the iceberg.
Want to get a better grasp on Toronto’s current food affordability crisis? We break down the latest facts and figures in the video, below.
Unpacking groceries: How Torontonians navigate the food affordability crisis
Goldie Wallensky puts away groceries in her pantry. She prepares dinner with leftovers from a community dinner program earlier in the week.📸 Allen Agostino/The Green Line.
In January, Mayor Olivia Chow declared “food insecurity an emergency across the city.”
Last year, Toronto’s food banks saw a million more clients than they had in 2023.
“And more than ever, we are seeing individuals who had never considered using food banks walking through our doors and accessing our emergency services for the very first time,” according to the 2024 Who’s Hungry Report.
More than half of the clients surveyed in the report said that the high cost of living is driving them to the food bank, even when these same clients had higher employment rates and wages, the report stated.
Food banks are no longer a last resort or rarity — they’re our new normal.
So, who are these new and returning food bank users? And what do their grocery trips look like?
Freelance photojournalist Allen Agostino visited families from different neighbourhoods, generations and backgrounds to learn how they use food banks and community meal programs to supplement their income and make sure there’s dinner on the table.
He captured the intimate meal prepping moments that happen after a food bank visit.
Our video intern Amartya Smaran also visited a Pay What You Can food market in the downtown core to learn how this model also helps community members shop for cheap.
Follow along their journeys from different food programs to their kitchens in this photo essay.
The Kensington Fruit Market is a family-owned local business that has been operating for over 40 years. 📸: Anthony Lippa-Hardy/The Green Line.
Katalinna Eftekhari, 3, makes silly faces with her asparagus stem while the family is eating dinner together. Her mother Julianna, 30, and older sister Lilianna, 5, prepared the meal using leftovers from a community dinner program they attended earlier in the week.
“The community dinners really help,” Behnam Eftekhari, 34 says. “Grocery costs have gone up a lot. Sometimes the community dinners have some extra produce or pasta and it helps us for the rest of the week.”
The Kensington Fruit Market is a family-owned local business that has been operating for over 40 years. 📸: Anthony Lippa-Hardy/The Green Line.
There’s no avoiding it — living in Toronto is harder than ever and we seem really far from affordable living.
With endless articles about the inflation of grocery prices due to corporate greed, and with campaigns such as Loblaws Is Out of Control, there’s a clear need for an alternative to paying three times the price for fewer groceries.
Enter The Green Line’s Neighbourhood Food Map, a resource for those looking for accessible spots to get a free box of fruits and veggies or to buy cat food, all vetted and shared by people like you. This map is growing and expanding by the day, providing a varied and trusted list of food offerings across the city.
You can use it to locate affordable spots to shop for food near you.
Do you have a favourite community pantry or mom-and-pop-owned produce store? Let your fellow Torontonians in on the best places to shop affordably by completing our form.
A community dinner and Story Circle hosted by The Green Line.
About the Event
Tuesday
FEB. 18, 2025
6 p.m. to 9 p.m. ET
St. Stephen-in-the-Fields Church 103 Bellevue Ave.
RSVP
We’re partnering with St. Stephen-In-The-Fields church to host a community dinner and Story Circle in the Kensington-Chinatown neighbourhood on Tuesday, Feb. 18 from 6 to 9 p.m. We’ll be talking about how to find affordable groceries and expand our Neighbourhood Food Map together.
We’ll also have resource tables featuring Fred Victor, FoodShare Toronto, Building Roots and Not Far from the Tree.
Delicious catering will be served by Rasta Pasta, so you don’t want to miss out!
Our event is Pay What You Can, as we want to include as many Torontonians as possible in this conversation. For transparency, here’s a breakdown of our costs:
Venue rental: $50
Food and drinks: $300
Labour: $1,200
If you’d like to support our team in continuing to host community-focused events like this, we’d appreciate a contribution of $31 to help us fully cover operational costs. If this is above your budget, we’d appreciate a payment of $10. If that’s still a barrier to you joining us, you can contribute as much as you’re able (even $1!)
Events are an essential part of our Action Journey. We want to empower Torontonians to take action on the issues they learn about in The Green Line — so what better way to do that than by bringing people together? From community members to industry leaders, anyone in Toronto who’s invested in discussing and solving the problems explored in our features is invited to attend. All ages are welcome unless otherwise indicated. Our only guidelines? Be present. Listen. Be kind and courteous. Respect everyone’s privacy. Hate speech and bullying are absolutely not tolerated. At the end of the day, if you had fun and feel inspired after our events, then The Green Line team will have accomplished what we set out to do. Any questions?Contact Us.
Our community members brainstormed solutions for navigating food prices in Toronto.
Compiled by Sahaana Ranganathan.
Event attendees talk about their experience shopping for food amidst the city’s cost-of-living crisis during Story Circles. 📸: Amartya Smaran/The Green Line.Goldie Wallensky, who’s featured in The Green Line’s photo essay about food banks, explains how she navigates meal programs to complement her pension. 📸: Amartya Smaran/The Green Line.Event attendees brainstormed solutions and resources to navigate the food affordability crisis in the city. 📸: Amartya Smaran/The Green Line.Representatives from Fred Victor, FoodShare Toronto, Not Far from the Tree and Building Roots talked about the resources each organization offers. 📸: Amartya Smaran/The Green Line.
SOLUTIONS
Strategic Shopping
A common theme that came up during Story Circles was shopping strategically. For some participants, this means supporting local farmers, community markets and groceries stores. For others, shopping strategically means choosing when to spend more on items where quality matters, for example fruits and veggies, and when to save money by buying the cheap option.
Many participants suggested paying attention to price fluctuations and buying in bulk when prices are low. “I keep my eye out for the “reduced price” labels at the store and take advantage of those weekly,” says participant Mariela Torroba Hennigen.
Shared Meal Prep
Many attendees emphasized the importance of building community as a means to reduce isolation and address food insecurity.
One way to do this is relying on friends and/or housemates to buy groceries and meal prep together in order to share costs and labour and to have different food options for the week.
“I’m disabled and moved in with a disabled friend who gets a food bank box delivered bi-weekly. We’re splitting the box and I’m getting veggies, fruit, some rice and pasta that way,” says participant Seeley Quest.
Advocacy for Systemic Change
A major topic of conversation that came up was targeting the root cause of food insecurity through policy change. Many participants emphasized the need for government policies to address food waste, support local food production and ensure living wages.
“I think a lot of our food issues need to be dealt with through government policy. It’s very hard for low- to mid-income people to shop their way into the food they need to eat,” says participant Chun He, who’s studied the importance of food access for his thesis.
Potential policies discussed include redirecting food waste from grocery stores and bakeries to food banks, and implementing universal basic income to help address poverty.
Some ways to advocate for systemic change include reaching out to your local representatives, voting for candidates who prioritize food insecurity and supporting organizations like FoodShare, who launched the Right to Food campaign to get the City of Toronto to agree to a new charter to defend the right to food for Torontonians.
ACTIONS
Do something about the problems that
impact you and your communities.
Find local markets near you
There are many local markets across Toronto, and many maps to explore them.
For example, FoodShare hosts a map of community markets, which offer high quality, culturally-relevant, affordable produce. The Scarborough Environmental Association has also curated a Map of Ethnic Grocery Stores.
Many food banks and community gardens frequently look for volunteers to help pack and distribute food to the community. You can find them using 211 Ontario.
One program to check out is Not Far From the Tree Toronto, where volunteers harvest fresh fruit from Toronto’s urban orchards. The fruits are then split between the tree owner, volunteers and community agencies.
Event attendees sit in Story Circles during the February Action Journey event “How to find affordable groceries in your neighbhourhood.” 📸: Amartya Smaran/The Green Line.
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