Monthly family food bill increased to more than $1,300 for residents of Huron-Perth in 2024

According to research into local food insecurity last year conducted by Huron Perth Public Health (HPPH), a family of four, on average, spent $309 per week or $1,338 monthly on groceries.

Just released by the local public-health agency, The Real Cost of Eating: Food Insecurity in Huron and Perth 2024 shows that a family of four receiving Ontario Works would need to allocate 46 per cent of their income to meet Canada's food guide recommendations. This underscores the growing challenge of food affordability and a broader trend of increasing household food insecurity. Between 2021 and 2023 (the most recent data available), nearly 18 per cent of households in Huron-Perth experienced food insecurity.

“We know that Huron-Perth residents are all feeling the impact of the increase to food costs that are happening right now, but it really has the biggest impact on those at the lowest incomes,” said HPPH public-health dietitian Amy MacDonald. “Every time we do this food-costing, we find that individuals and families living on social assistance and living on minimum wage simply do not have enough income to purchase adequate food to meet their needs.”

Those who can’t afford to meet the food-guide nutrition guidelines tend to rely on food banks and low-cost options at more affordable grocery stores. These types of food, MacDonald explained, are often shelf-stable with higher amounts of sugar, fat, salt and preservatives, and less nutritional value in them.

“Whether it be, at the lowest level, where you’re just worrying about not having enough money for food, or where you’re having to decrease the quality or eventually even decrease the quantity and going hungry, food insecurity has really negative impacts on health outcomes,” MacDonald said.

“It results in increased health conditions like heart disease, hypertension, arthritis, pain; it also results in poorer mental health, and it can even result in increased issues with healthy growth and development for children, and with infectious disease as well. If you’re not meeting your (nutritional) needs, it’s hard to keep yourself healthy.”

From this report, the HPPH is emphasizing the critical link between income and food insecurity. As area residents with lower incomes and those who rely on social supports continue to make difficult choices between paying utility bills and going to the grocery store, MacDonald says the most effective way to address food insecurity is by making poverty reduction a priority at all levels.

“Our goal is to ensure that local leaders, local residents understand that food insecurity is an issue of inadequate income and is really best addressed by income-based policies,” MacDonald said. “That means we want to see increased support for things like basic income, making sure we’ve got adequate old-age pensions, looking at working-age supplements or adequate Canada Disability Benefit, lower income tax rates for lowest-income households, and making sure we’ve got good standards for working conditions, especially for precarious work and low-wage jobs.

“And, in the Province of Ontario, making sure our social-assistance rates are adequate because we know in Ontario right now, Ontario Works and ODSP are not adequate for people to be able to afford enough food. We need to look at how we can address those things.”

Individuals and local business leaders can also help forge a path forward in addressing food insecurity by writing to their provincial and federal representatives to advocate for these income-based policies, and by supporting or joining Ontario’s Living Wage Network, thereby ensuring local workers can make enough to live in Huron and Perth counties.

To learn more about why income solutions are needed to reduce food insecurity, read The Real Cost of Eating: Food Insecurity in Huron and Perth 2024 in its entirety at www.hpph.ca/reports.