Rising cost of living has slashed delivered supplies for SA’s Food Cupboard

For over a year, Algonquin College’s Food Cupboard has been receiving a fraction of the supplies once delivered by the Ottawa Food Bank due to the rising prices of food.

Abby Muir, coordinator of the college’s Food Cupboard in B102, said the supplies the Food Cupboard received from deliveries were cut in half in January 2025.

The Food Cupboard is an Algonquin Students’ Association-run service meant to discreetly provide students facing food insecurity the supplies they need.

Despite the slash in supply, the Ottawa Food Bank still supports local food banks and food cupboards in any way it can.

“We receive weekly deliveries from the Ottawa Food Bank which is very nice,” Muir said during an interview in the Food Cupboard. “It stocks most of what you see here.”

The Food Cupboard’s services have felt the effects of the decreased supply from the larger food bank, though.

“We used to order milk and eggs but now we’re having to try different ways to get what people need,” Muir said. “We’ve tried cutting egg cartons in half, only giving six at a time.”

According to Food Banks Canada’s HungerCount 2025, food bank usage across Canada has doubled since 2019.

Ottawa Food Bank’s numbers tell the same story.

“The Ottawa Food Bank works with nearly 100 community and emergency food programs across the city,” said Alex Noreau, advocacy and policy officer at the Ottawa Food Bank. “The entire network has seen a sharp rise in demand.”

In the 2024-25 fiscal year, 588,866 visits were made to the Ottawa Food Bank, Noreau said.

The Food Cupboard is one of the many community and emergency food programs the Ottawa Food Bank supports.

With the network being as expansive as it is, Noreau said the Ottawa Food Bank feels every cent of the rising price of food.

The Ottawa Food Bank had a budget of over $32 million in the 2024-25 fiscal year.

“Ninety-nine per cent of this funding comes from community donations and support (and) one per cent from the City of Ottawa,” Noreau said.

As a result of the limited amount of resources, coupled with the increased demand for food, the Ottawa Food Bank has had to stretch its budget to “ensure that food remained accessible across the entire network,” Noreau said.

In addition to the weekly shipments from the Ottawa Food Bank, the SA’s Food Cupboard relies on the college community for support, Muir said.

The Food Cupboard often receives these donations through events held on-campus.

“We have quite a few programs to support the cupboard across the college,” Muir said. “The life drawing initiative is a good example. They’ve been a long-standing program that donates to the food cupboard since before I began.

“We also have our Feed the Pack games with our varsity teams. We collect donations on those specific games. It’s one of our more consistent ways of getting donations.”

The Students’ Association hopes to up the ante in the fight against food insecurity.

“We also have Fresh for $5,” Muir said. “We’re trying to do that once a month where it’s $5 for a fresh bag of fruits and veggies.”

Muir said the Fresh for $5 events have been extremely successful.

The event started at 11 a.m. and was meant to last until 1 p.m. It sold out in half an hour.

“We’re trying to find more creative ways besides just the Food Cupboard service to address food insecurity,” Muir said. “One of those ways in which we’re doing it is with our SA thrift store — which we try to host once every semester — because it’s not just food that’s expensive. Everything is.”