Ask most Ontarians and they have been feeling the pinch from soaring grocery bills and an increasing cost of living. To try to ease the burden, the federal government launched a National Food Security Strategy, with a focus to try and make food more affordable.
As part of the strategy, Prime Minister Mark Carney last week announced the government would spend more than $3 billion over the span of 10 years to produce more food in Canada and make it more affordable.
A central pillar in the strategy is $1 billion for food infrastructure in the new Food Link Fund. The fund will support the building of new food terminals and hubs and provide support to expand the ones currently in existence.
While policymakers hope these investments will rein in food costs and empower growers, agricultural and food security advocates warn that funding alone won’t solve the systemic issues found in food insecurity.
For primary producers, the modern food economy is defined by an imbalance of power. With just five major retailers controlling 75 per cent of Canada’s grocery sales. The concentration of grocery store power has left many feeling like they have a false sense of choice.
Jenn Pfenning, president of the National Farmers Union (NFU) and director of human resources, marketing, and operations at Pfenning’s Organic Farm in New Hamburg, points out that the actual growing of food is the least profitable part of the entire system.
“We are squeezed as farmers between agribusiness… and massive organizations like Loblaws that dominate the market,” Pfenning explained. While corporate grocery chains post record profits every quarter, in the current system, farmers face escalating input costs for equipment, seeds and pest control that outpace their income.
Regional food hubs would be centralized facilities that help aggregate, store, process and distribute local farm goods. Proponents of the hubs argue that this would make it easier to bypass corporate distribution networks.
“Shortening those chains and giving more power back to the producers, that does have an impact on our ability to command a price that actually covers our costs, and that’s what is really important,” said Pfenning.
“We’re looking at what it will take to offset the power of existing mega corporations. I think [food] hubs have an opportunity to allow farmers, primary producers, to come together and build off each other’s strengths a bit.”
She noted that while the food hubs are a good start, they aren’t the ultimate answer.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not a bad thing. It’s a good thing. It is a necessary and important thing to be investing in. But we can’t stop there,” Pfenning stressed.
“There are a lot bigger problems with the way that our food system functions and it doesn’t serve the needs of the many. Far too much of it serves the profit of shareholders.”
The NFU argues that the government’s current financial commitments to the food hubs fall short.
“$432 million is less than seven per cent of total net profits of the Canadian retail grocery sector in 2025. The Food-Link Fund should be used to cultivate a stable marketplace for farmers who do direct-to-consumer sales, and strengthen alternatives to large corporate grocery retailers,” the organization said in a release.
One aspect Pfenning wants to see in food hubs is cooperative ownership and operation, along with government support.
“If we don’t, it will make no difference whatsoever. And these food hubs will go the same way that everything else has gone because of corporate control and concentration of power, as systems get taken over and monopolized by a small number of actors within them,” said Pfenning.
While supply chain investments such as Food Hubs are crucial for long-term resilience, frontline food relief organizations caution that food hubs are not the magic fix for immediate affordability.
Kim Wilhelm, CEO of the Food Bank of Waterloo Region, highlights the staggering escalation of need across the region, a trend nationwide. Since 2019, historical access to food assistance programs has spiked by more than 200 per cent. Between January and September of 2026 alone, the food bank spent $3.2 million on food, already surpassing its total expenditures for the entirety of 2025 by more than a million dollars.
High grocery costs compound the affordablity issue from both ends: they squeeze household budgets to the breaking point while simultaneously eroding the purchasing power of food banks trying to acquire nutritious stock.
“The announcement is focused on food distribution structure rather than emergency food assistance,” Wilhelm noted, adding that while expanded cold storage and distribution networks could improve food recovery and local access, affordability is ultimately a broader economic problem.
“Affordability overall is the driving issue for those who are accessing food assistance. It’s not about food supply. It’s not about food availability. It’s about people experiencing not having the money that allows them to purchase food.”
