Canada

On this topic, donating food is of course awesome, but if you can, donate money. The food bank can stretch that $5 muuuuuch farther than you can in terms of food.

You know the saying:

‘Donate to a food bank and feed a person for a day but teach them to shoplift and you feed them for the rest of their lives.’

Potential mechanisms include capping profits of select food supply chain industries to a specific amount. E.g. a progressive tax that reaches 100% above a certain amount. This eliminates the benefits of gouging.

Another potential mechanism is heavy regulation or even nationalization of critical food industries. For example, otherwise healthy food that doesn't meet commercial standards for size, colour etc, can be sold to the government for a minimum viable price, but sent to food banks and soup kictchens. As a consumer paying top dollar you'll want the best looking potato carrot or apple, but for a soup kicthen's free meal, any potato will do. Consider it a buyer of last resort. It doesn't mess with the markets, but it underpins total availability. Yet another is to let food bank volunteers scrape nearly but not yet spoiled food as a means of stocking up. Instead of buying food, food bank dollars can focus on logistics of eliminating our tremendous spoiled food that didn't sell. It currently just goes to waste. The stores benefit because volunteers help trim shelves of food that is almost past due, and food banks and soup kitchens get food for free or at least the cost of getting it and preparing it.

There is also progress being made with apps like TooGoodToGo where food businesses can offer deep discounts on random stuff before things go bad. The programs can be expanded and optimized for greater food equity.

There are lots of opportunities. This is a failure of markets, because there is still, in absolute terms enough food for everyone. Markets only chase profit, so ideally this needs to be a public solution.

No one in this country needs to go hungry.

Depends how much you're donating. Your $20 will go farther municipally than provincially.

Re: price controls, that's been tried before (not in Canada). It didn't end well. What makes you think they wouldn't end the same? Specifically, how would you prevent the price-restricted companies from deciding to just... not sell the things that are least profitable under that model?

We also need to nip surveillance pricing in the butt asap

Also, donate to things like the Salvation Army emergency food fund. Why? Because if you lose your job tomorrow and have debt but minimal savings, guess what? You can’t just walk into a food bank and walk out with dinner. You walk in, fill out the paperwork, and then wait until it is processed and the next distribution day arrives.

So if you need food TODAY, call 211. They’ll find your local emergency food service, who likely is funded almost completely by donations, unlike food banks that have some government support (through the CFB).

Thanks for the reminder. I'm far from rich but I'm more fortunate than some and my company has donation matching -- so I'm going to do it first thing tomorrow.