Food bank use in Windsor-Essex up around 9% in 2025, food bank association says

Food bank use in Windsor-Essex rose again in 2025, organizers say, as grocery prices continue to climb, and so does the cost of housing, which cuts into peoples’ food budgets.

The UHC - Hub of Opportunities, which distributes food to 15 food banks across the region, tallied a total of 254,032 visits in 2025, a nine per cent increase over 2024, a spokesperson told CBC in an email.

And affiliated food banks across the region reported the following increases:

• The Essex Area Food Bank saw 10,978 visits in 2025, around 1,000 more than in 2024, according to manager Gerald Belanger.
• The Community Food Pantry at the Community Support Centre in Belle River saw visits climb by around 100 to more than 1,400, Food Services Coordinator Paula Ivanitz said.
• The Amherstburg Community Food and Fellowship Mission saw 17,528 visits, according to numbers provided by volunteer board member Jill Kanwischer, up by more than 650 over 2024. 

“These numbers reflect real people,” Kanwischer wrote to CBC in an email, “seniors on fixed incomes, working families trying to keep up with rising costs, and individuals facing unexpected hardship. What we are seeing is not a short-term spike, but a sustained level of need that continues to grow.”

The regional reports mirror the findings of Feed Ontario’s annual Hunger Report, released in December, which found that more than one million people made 8.7 million visits to food banks between April 2024 and March 2025.

They also correspond to the findings of the Windsor-Essex County Health Unit’s annual food affordability report, released in November, which found that low-income residents have less and less money to spend on groceries after they’ve paid their rent. Single people on Ontario Works have no money left for food at all.

Working people using food banks

But Feed Ontario found that it wasn’t just people on social assistance who were using food banks; it was also one in four working people in the province.

“If you're working and you have to utilize a food bank, you know, what does that tell people?” asked June Muir, the CEO of the Hub of Opportunities and the president of the Windsor-Essex Food Bank Association.

Muir said food bank clients used to feel embarrassed to use the services, but that’s no longer the case.

“People need help,” she said. “They come.  We're glad they're not embarrassed.”

WATCH | How fresh produce makes it to food banks:

How this facility helps rescue millions of pounds of fresh produce

December 5, 2025|

Duration 2:28

Through the Leamington Regional Food Hub, fresh produce makes its way to those most vulnerable in the community. Acton Clarkin takes us inside as part of CBC's Make the Season Kind campaign, which supports local food banks.

Demand for food banks has escalated to such an extent that some food banks in the province are facing possible closure, Muir told CBC, but so far, the Windsor-Essex services are surviving. 

And some praised the generosity of the community and of their contributors. 

“We’re here in a small town of Essex, and all these … charitable organizations, especially the Goodfellows — we get a very large amount of money from them,” Belanger said.

“We’re very blessed that we’re getting so much.”

Ivanitz said the Community Food Pantry has been overwhelmed by “amazing community support.”

“Definitely for December … schools all got involved and businesses,” she said.

“We also did coats in November, just like a lot of other places around here. And … that wasn't just like a small jump; that was like a large jump from the other years.”