How these new mobile meal programs are meeting the needs of Scarborough’s most vulnerable residents

A woman serves food from Feed Scarborough's new food truck, which will be used to deliver hot meals to people in neighbourhoods where the need is greatest.

Two new initiatives are helping feed some of Scarborough’s most vulnerable residents by meeting them where they’re at and in their communities.

On Tuesday, not-for-profit Feed Scarborough unveiled its new food truck and RxEats programs.

The first has transformed a former Purolator truck into a food truck that will serve as a de facto food distribution site.

Made possible through funding from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, this vehicle will be used to deliver hot meals to people in Scarborough neighbourhoods where the need is greatest.

The meals will be prepared with rescued food collected in partnership with Second Harvest and local food businesses.

“We know how transit can be in Scarborough. We have a lot of vulnerable folks who cannot come to us so we go to them,” Suman Roy, Feed Scarborough’s founder and CEO, told CP24 on Tuesday morning at his organization’s headquarters on Warden Avenue.

“Especially unhoused folks, they do not have kitchens to cook food, especially with food bank food, so we have ready hot meals going to folks, especially in the winter months, and serving it to them.”

On evenings and weekends, the retrofitted food truck will become a training site for community members who want to start their own food truck businesses, with the goal of helping them build new skills.

The second new initiative launched on Tuesday is a health-focused program known as RxEats that will be operating out of a refurbished ambulance.

Through RxEats, frozen, medically tailored meals are delivered to Scarborough residents living with chronic conditions.

“We know food is medicine, and we need to invest more in food care to reduce our health care costs,” Roy said.

“So here, we go to different places, to the most vulnerable who are suffering from chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, and we provide meals like diabetic meals, hypertension-friendly meals.”

For RxEats, Feed Scarborough works in partnership with dietitians from Scarborough Health Network, who are helping design the menu.

Grace Lee, a registered dietician at Scarborough Health Network, said the community has a high rate of diabetes and this new program will help residents manage chronic diseases.

“We help them to have better food choices sand also we empower them to make better, healthier choices for themselves and for their families,” she said.

The agency is also collaborating with Toronto Police Service’s 41 and 43 Divisions, which are assisting in identifying the neighbourhoods with the highest needs, as well as the Scarborough Business Association, which is bringing the business community together to support the program.

New programs will double the number of free meals Feed Scarborough serves each week

Roy said these two new programs will double the number of free meals they’re serving to people experiencing food insecurity in the community each week from 2,000 to 4,000.

Feed Scarborough said they were created with the goal of providing food to people with dignity while working to break the cycle of food insecurity in the community. In a release, the organization said these new programs will redefine what emergency food distribution means.

“The traditional food bank model cannot meet today’s challenges,” Roy said, adding that his organization always aims to lead “with innovation and compassion.”

“We are building something smarter. These programs feed people today and open doors for tomorrow.”

Scarborough has highest food bank need in all of Toronto: report

Scarborough has a higher need for food banks than anywhere else in Toronto, according to the 2024 Who’s Hungry Report. Data in that 52-page document found that food banks in Toronto’s easternmost borough, which has a population of 623,000, saw 1.3 million client visits in 2024.

Last year, Feed Scarborough supported more than 400,000 of those residents through its free grocery store and meal program, adding they’re constantly working to respond to this rising need “with creative, community-driven solutions that deliver long-term impact.”

New programs looks at food insecurity through a different lens

Roy noted that the two new programs launched on Tuesday serve a different demographic than those who use the food bank, that they look at emergency food delivery through a different lens, while also empowering people to be resilient and find employment.

“These are the programs (that) are actually tackling the people who need the most and who are most vulnerable. This is a step beyond food banks,” he said, adding that on average only 30 per cent of food-insecure people in Canada actually go to a food bank.

The remaining 70 per cent, he said, “suffer quietly.”

“These (programs) won’t wait for people to come to food banks but actually reach out to them,” said Roy.