FACING THE FACTS

Facing the Facts: Food Insecurity in the Spotlight

By Jessica Huras

FOOD insecurity has long been a significant problem in Canada, with research showing that a growing number of Canadians were struggling to afford nutritious food even before the pandemic left millions without reliable sources of income. “We knew before the pandemic that we had a large problem, and that problem had been festering,” says Valerie Tarasuk, a professor in the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto and the principal investigator of the PROOF food insecurity research program.

Research by PROOF indicates that one in eight Canadians reported experiencing food security prior to the pandemic. “What’s happened since the pandemic for some people is that their economic circumstances have gotten a whole lot worse,” says Tarasuk. “I think COVID has put a gun to our head to say we’ve got to get this figured out.”

Daily Bread Food Bank has seen a 200 percent increase in new clients since March, according to CEO Neil Hetherington. In April 2020, the Government of Canada announced an investment of $100 million to help food banks meet this surge in demand and support Canadians facing financial uncertainty amid the pandemic.

Food banks have grappled with feeding a growing number of Canadians, while simultaneously adapting to the new health and safety challenges of operating amid the pandemic.

Hetherington says that 30 percent of Daily Bread’s food bank locations were forced to close down. “Our distribution points were cut off,” he explains. “It’s not like a supermarket where the employees arrive for work every day. You’re talking about a food distribution network that exists in community centres, which closed down or were run by volunteers who themselves were in a vulnerable group and couldn’t continue.”

According to Hetherington, racialized and low-income Canadians are statistically more likely to access food banks and are also in a higher risk group for contracting COVID-19. This means populations that were most vulnerable to start with have been most significantly impacted by health risks and food insecurity amid the pandemic.

In Manitoba, a curbside meal pick-up program has offered one possible solution for helping those in need access healthy food, while also protecting their safety by complying with physical distancing recommendations. Everyone Eats, a partnership between Brandon University Food Services, the Brandon Food Council, the John Howard Society and Assiniboine Community College, allows clients to place meal orders online based on a pay-what-you-can donation model.

“It’s a different way of getting food to people that’s safe and respects physical distancing, but also gives people choice and agency in the type of foods that they can eat,” says Rob Moquin, executive director of Food Matters Manitoba.

The initiative also helps to reduce some of the social stigma associated with food charity, with clients making a confidential donation that can range from $0 to $100 for their meal. “If somebody is not paying anything for that food, nobody else ever knows,” says Moquin.

In Toronto, Feed It Forward’s grocery store also operates based on a pay-what-you-can model. The store is stocked with everything from fresh produce to pantry staples like flour and pet food, most of which is rescued from traditional grocery stores, restaurants and food terminals. Feed It Forward runs a number of other initiatives, including a mobile food truck and food hamper program, focused on saving unsold food and redistributing it to those in need.

The government is also funding this model of cycling usable food that might have otherwise been wasted back to vulnerable Canadians. Building upon April’s $100 million pledge, in June a federal investment of $50 million to support a surplus food rescue program was announced. Second Harvest, Food Banks Canada and more than 100 food businesses and non-profit organizations have partnered with the initiative to reallocate excess eggs, potatoes, meat and other goods to Canadians facing food insecurity. In October, another $100 million was added to the Emergency Food Security Fund; the first portion of the funding provided approximately six million meals to those in need.

The program allows producers who have food surpluses related to the shutdown of the restaurant and hospitality industries to minimize their losses while also supporting food banks in need of supplies. About 10 percent of goods are directed specifically to vulnerable communities in northern Canada.

Some Canadian cities have funnelled resources into community gardens in an effort to offer residents better access to nutritious food. In Victoria, B.C., for example, the Get Growing Victoria initiative has seen over 50,000 free vegetable seedlings distributed through local community and non-profit organizations.

Hetherington says that community gardens can have positive social benefits, but he doesn’t see them as having a measurable impact on Canada’s growing food insecurity problem. “They can help with social isolation, and community gardening can be done at a distance, which is great, but in terms of a solution to food insecurity, I don't see any data that would support that,” he says.

Hetherington also points out that having free time to grow your own food is a luxury that vulnerable populations often

Some Canadian cities have funnelled resources into community gardens in an effort to offer residents better access to nutritious food. In Victoria, B.C., for example, the Get Growing Victoria initiative has seen over 50,000 free vegetable seedlings distributed through local community and non-profit organizations.

don’t have. “If you think about a single parent, they barely have enough time to parent and work their job, so do they really have the time and resources to be able to participate in a community garden?”

In spite of the hope offered by these government funding boosts and community initiatives, PROOF’s Tarasuk says that impactful improvements in food security can only happen when we start addressing the reasons why so many Canadians can’t afford food in the first place.

“One thing that we have been documenting for years is the huge disconnect between food charity and food insecurity,” says Tarasuk. “By our best estimate, fewer than one in four food insecure households ever make their way into a food bank or a charitable food distribution organization. And we have absolutely no evidence that the receipt of food through those venues is sufficient to shift somebody into a food secure situation.”

As both Tarasuk and Hetherington point out, food insecurity isn’t caused by a lack of access to healthy food; it’s caused by not having enough money to buy food. “The new clients that are arriving to us, 80 percent of them it’s because of job loss,” says Hetherington.

Tarasuk says that although the new government funding directed to food banks is better than nothing, benefit programs like CERB and the Canada Child Benefit can have a more meaningful impact on long-term food security.

“We did a study in the winter before COVID looking at the effects of the Canada Child Benefit, which was introduced in 2016, on food insecurity in Canada,” says Tarasuk. “We had the opportunity to look at the before and after of the Canada Child Benefit, and we could see that it was doing good – that it was mitigating severe food insecurity.”

Ensuring all Canadians have the income needed to consistently buy healthy food for themselves means putting the needs of vulnerable communities at the forefront when developing government policy, says Tarasuk. She says that the rise in food insecurity outlined by the recent Statistics Canada report, for example, which shows that CERB left many at-risk populations without the financial support they needed.

“There were people who couldn’t get CERB either because they hadn’t worked enough, they couldn’t manage the application process, or they were working under the table,” says Tarasuk. “Whatever the issues were, they were in need of income and they didn’t have any, and that’s what the report is telling us. We’ve got a bunch of people who, for whatever reason, that system wasn’t good enough for.”

Tarasuk adds that the widespread misbelief that food banks can solve food insecurity can undermine efforts to address the income issues that are the heart of the problem. “Nothing will compare to the difference we would make if we just simply gave those parents more money so that they could go to the store and buy food,” she says.

FACTS & STATS

14.6 percent of Canadians live in a household where food insecurity has been a problem in the past 30 days, an increase from 10.5 percent two years ago.

Daily Bread food banks are serving close to 20,000 individuals each week in the Toronto area, compared to approximately 15,000 in 2019, an increase of close to 25%.

32 percent of food bank clients surveyed by Daily Bread had at least one member of their household working before COVID-19 and 76 percent of these households reported job loss. 28 percent of respondents received CERB, but they were still unable to afford their basic needs. 1.2 MILLION children under 18 in Canada live in families struggling to afford food.

Black households are 3.56 times more likely to be food insecure than white households.

GROWTH CONTRACTIONIN TIMES OF

How Canadian jerky company Dick Duff’s made huge strides during COVID-19

THE pandemic has left many companies scrambling to find innovative ways to keep their businesses afloat, and the food industry is no exception. New ventures face an even greater challenge: establishing a customer base and increasing sales when the world is changing rapidly around them.

The founders of Dick Duff’s Organic Jerky adapted their business amidst the pandemic to turn their focus online, and the results were impressive.

The business was started in Parry Sound, Ont., by a local legend named Dick Duff who sold beef jerky within his community. After 25 years, Duff partnered with two brothers looking for a new business opportunity: Jonathan and Jeremy Anderson, who are Parry Sound locals and fans of Dick’s homemade jerky. After many innovations, the jerky was taken to the next level as a consumer product: Dick Duff’s Organic Jerky.

Being an e-commerce company wasn’t a priority in Dick Duff’s original sales plan, which primarily focused on in-store demonstrations, trade shows and retail, all options unavailable in the midst of a pandemic. Reaching new customers would be a challenge during the pandemic.

“Sampling allows you to connect with consumers – have them try your product so there’s no risk of them purchasing the product and not liking it,” says Jeremy Anderson, co-founder and president.

There are other options for getting samples to consumers, but they come with challenges. Sampling by mail is a contactless method for distributing free samples, but Dick Duff’s noted that it’s an expensive process that adds an extra step to the time between consumer trial and purchase.

Trade shows were another part of Dick Duff’s business

development that wasn’t possible due to COVID-19. Since they could no longer be on the road, they went online.

“We had a number of trade shows lined up, and you’re reaching tens of thousands of people in one weekend,” Jeremy explains. “Where else are you going to be able to reach that many people in a single weekend?”

As challenges arose, they had to find a new way to reach consumers. The Andersons had a reputation to uphold and pushed through the pandemic to further Duff’s legacy, who is now 60 years of age.

“We had to figure out how we were going to reach new consumers. Online was the obvious answer,” Jeremy continues. Online sales turned out to be a positive experience for Dick Duff’s, with the company selling 15 times more jerky virtually compared to the month before the pandemic restrictions started.

Transitioning to online sales has offered the Andersons the opportunity to discover more about who their consumers are and where they live. Through e-commerce, they can sell coastto-coast and build a national presence. As the only certified organic jerky in all of Canada, developing a strong national presence was essential.

The Andersons started with Amazon and immediately had tremendous success with the online retailer. Dick Duff’s is now one of the bestselling products in the jerky and dried meats category on Amazon.ca.

They also saw gains by partnering with food delivery services and online grocers like Fresh City Farms and Well. ca, which grew in popularity due to the pandemic, and working with subscription box companies like Carnivore Club and The Balanced Snack Box, along with sampling companies like Sampler. Getting creative, the brothers also partnered with microbrewery delivery service Brewer Eats. For most consumers, food is essential with any beer delivery. As it turns out, craft beer drinkers find organic jerky the perfect pairing.

Setting up as an online retailer wasn’t easy at first, however, challenging the Andersons to learn the online and e-commerce space quickly. They faced a learning curve when it came to understanding what works and what doesn’t, especially when it came to navigating social media for the business. With concentrated efforts to build a following, their online presence grew substantially on major social networks.

The hard work is paying off. Dick Duff’s Organic Jerky is now available online through a variety of retailers and in more than 250 brick-and-mortar stores. Each authentic and finely crafted flavour is inspired by the way Duff cooks in his kitchen. “Red Wine & Rosemary” is one of Duff’s delectable combos for his roast beef marinades, “Sweet Chipotle” comes from Duff’s spicy BBQ flavouring, and “Dijon Mustard” has always been Duff’s favourite topping on his roast beef sandwich. Unique in its lower sugar content and higher quality ingredients, the jerky will be available with additional flavour options to continue distinguishing itself from competitors.

In keeping with Duff’s original methods from 1989, the product continues to be clean, sustainable and ethically sourced, using organic beef. The product also boasts no GMOs, pesticides, added hormones, antibiotics or preservatives;

priced at less than $10 per bag.

Through e-commerce, they can sell coastto-coast and build a national presence.

As the only certified organic jerky in all of Canada, developing a strong national presence was essential.