Food banks in N.L. are so desperate, they're even cutting back on instant coffee

At the Bridges to Hope food bank in St. John's, spiking demand is forcing staff members to cut back on what they give to the hungry.

The food bank used to give clients a full box of cereal, but starting this August it began reducing the quantity, instead giving four cups portioned out in a plastic bag. 

They also used to hand out one full cup of instant coffee. Now it's only three-quarters of a cup, says executive director Lesley Burgess.

"Just kind of small, cost-saving measures like that, because we don't want to see our hampers get any smaller," Burgess says.

"We are already only able to offer four days' food at a time."

She says they're also assessing the items in their hampers and surveying clients to see how helpful each grocery item is as they consider switching some to be more cost-effective.

Burgess says the belt-tightening is because they expect to serve thousands more people this year compared to last.

She suspects 17,000 people might walk through their doors by the end of the year — a 30 per cent rise over last year, when the food bank served 13,000 people.

Bridges to Hope isn't the only food bank in Newfoundland and Labrador seeing a spike in demand.

"We could see upwards of four new people registering, and that's every day of the week when we're here,"  Kaitlin Clarke, communications and outreach co-ordinator at the St. Vincent de Paul food bank in Carbonear, a rural town more than 100 kilometres away from St. John's that serves a 350-kilometre area.

"Demand is crazy high and everybody's struggling. Donors are struggling. We've seen people that were previously regular donors [to] us that have now come to us looking for help," Clarke said.

The cutbacks come as food bank usage in Canada has reached a record high, with more than two million visits in March 2024 alone, according to a new report from Food Banks Canada released Monday that surveyed about 2,590 food banks.

Food bank demand is nearly double what it was five years ago, according to the report, when about one million people visited a food bank during the month of March 2019.

Food bank use in Canada is up six per cent since March of 2023, the report also says.