Local food banks anticipate rise in demand due to U.S. tariffs

Food banks in Waterloo region and Guelph expect a sharp rise in users if the United States's threatened tariffs move forward on April 2. 

Carol Mcleod-McCarthy, managing director of the Guelph Food Bank, told CBC Kitchener-Waterloo that the agency is already struggling to meet the community's current needs and has 1,000 more clients than it had this time last year.

"They're definitely going to affect us," she said. "We're purchasing more food than we've ever done in our history and barely keeping up." 

Dianne McLeod, CEO of the Cambridge Food Bank, said she expects a rise in food bank users as the tariffs affect many Canadian jobs.

"The people that we're serving don't have a lot of cushion for a lay-off. They will likely be coming to use fairly quickly." 

McLeod also believes that even people who avoid being laid off may require the food bank.  

"Many people are really having difficulty paying their rent as it is now without the anticipated increase in the cost of goods." 

Kim Wilhelm, CEO of the Food Bank of Waterloo region, said the increase in food prices will directly impact their ability to buy everyday essentials like dairy, fruit and bread.

"We expect [dairy prices] to be initially stable, but we've heard that they're going to start increasing after about three months," she said.

"We've also heard that meat and alternatives are expected to be affected by the rising feed costs and then the potential regulatory tariffs. Fresh fruit, fresh vegetable prices are also expected to remain stable initially, but canned vegetables are expected to face significant price increases due to the steel tariffs."

'A perfect storm'

If the tariffs go forward and are in place for a long time, Dianne McLeod said, the Cambridge Food Bank would also see fewer donations from businesses and the public. 

"We're going to have a perfect storm of more people needing our services and less people being able to donate."

McLeod said that as food prices have risen over the last few years, the food bank has seen its food donations drop significantly and has become reliant on financial contributions to buy food. 

"We've actually had more financial donations over the last couple of years. I expect that will change once people feel the pressure of these tariffs." 

While the Cambridge Food Bank has not prepared specifically for the tariffs, McLeod said, the food bank has food contingency funds for possible economic disruptions.

"If we see a sudden increase in users, we have the funds to purchase the food we need for a short time to make sure that we can do some additional fundraising," she said.

As calls to "buy Canadian" grow across the country,  McLeod said, the Cambridge Food Bank is committed to buying Canadian products when possible. 

"We've had that policy for a long time. We always try to buy local first."

McLeod said she has seen food bank users change their diet to match the seasonal produce in Canada. 

"It will cost less and is good for the environment." 

Income-based solutions

Fiona Yeudall, an assistant professor at Toronto Metropolitan University's School of Nutrition, told CBC that tariffs threaten food security in general. 

"When people are stressed in terms of their income, the food is the elastic portion," she said. "You start to eat food that you don't like as much or you reduce the quality. And if it gets really bad, you reduce the quantity. And the last people within any household who get reduced quantity are children. So if there's hungry children, there's hungry parents."

Yeudall added that even before the tariffs, food insecurity was an income issue and required income-based solutions. 

Yeudall wants the federal government to implement a program similar to the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) to ease the pressures of the incoming tariffs. She said the program and others like it are a form of universal basic income.

"That's that floor that you don't want your neighbours to fall below because there's societal costs associated with that."