Alberta’s food bank warehouse runs dangerously low as demand surges

Alberta’s food bank warehouse runs dangerously low as demand surges

Published 6:00 am Friday, October 2, 2026

The provincial warehouse that stocks 112 food banks across Alberta is nearly empty, and the association that runs it is urging companies to donate before demand peaks for the fall and winter seasons.

Food Banks Alberta says its provincial warehouse in Leduc has hit a critical low after a summer in which it shipped food to members far faster than donations arrived to replace them.

“This is the first time that we’ve encountered this level of scarcity within our warehouse,” said Darryl Burry, executive director of Food Banks Alberta.

The association is short roughly 350 pallets of product heading into September, Burry said, and each holds hundreds of containers of food.

“We’ve got about 250 pallets worth of product that we are short for … September,” he said.

Food Banks Alberta distributed 3.36 million pounds of food across the province in 2025. By the halfway point of 2026, it had already moved nearly 90 per cent of that full year total, with its busiest months still to come. In August alone, the volume sent to member food banks ran 32.8 per cent higher than a year earlier, FBA says.

Driving that surge is a steep rise in need. Alberta recorded 210,541 average monthly food bank visits in 2025, a 21.8 per cent jump over the previous year, according to Food Bank Canada’s 2025 HungerCount. More than a third of those visits, 75,968, were made on behalf of children. The 2026 HungerCount is due in October, and the organization says early projections point to another significant increase.

Most of the warehouse stock come from corporate donors such as manufacturers, producers and retailers, and FBA redistributes it to members according to need. When those donations fall behind, every community in the network feels it, the shortage stretches from major cities to small rural towns.

Melissa Mullis sees both ends of that supply chain. She is executive director of Medicine Hat’s Root Cellar Food and Wellness Hub and chair of Food Banks Alberta. She says each month member food banks submit an allotment form requesting what they need, and the provincial warehouse ships it out.

“That food that comes to us, we really rely on it,” Mullis said.

Larger operations like the Root Cellar can raise their own money and source food locally, Mullis says, but many smaller members cannot.

“There are smaller member food banks who purely run on those donations,” she said, noting that many sit in rural areas with few opportunities to fundraise.

“It affects everybody in different ways.

“We have the warehouse space, the transportation network and 112 member food banks ready to move food into communities,” Burry said. “What we are missing right now is the food itself.”

The association is asking food companies to donate products and is asking financial supporters to give money, which can stretch through bulk buying. It also encourages Albertans to give to their own local food bank first.

Both kinds of help matter, Mullis says.

“When people donate cash to us, it gives us the ability to buy what we need when we need it,” she said.

Food donations, she adds, bring variety to the pantry so families are not left with only the basics.

People can donate to Food Banks Alberta at foodbanksalberta.ca/donate.