What happens when an emergency response becomes a permanent feature of the system?

In this conversation, Neil Hetherington, CEO of Daily Bread Food Bank, offers a clear-eyed view from inside one of Canada’s most critical—yet least understood—institutions. What emerges is not a story about charity, but about infrastructure. Daily Bread operates at scale: forecasting demand, coordinating complex logistics, and increasingly using data to understand how food insecurity moves through the city. The result is a system that works—efficient, adaptive, and deeply embedded.

And that’s the tension.

Because the more effective food banks become, the easier it is for the broader system to depend on them. Housing costs rise, incomes stagnate, disability supports fall short—and the pressure flows downstream. Food banks absorb it. Quietly. Reliably. Permanently.

But beneath the operations is something less visible and more essential: care as culture. Not sentiment, but structure. The deliberate design of dignity, choice, and respect in how people access food and how communities participate in meeting that need. In a landscape defined by scarcity, culture becomes the operating system that keeps everything functioning.

This episode treats the food bank not as a solution, but as a signal. A lens into how policy failure is lived, managed, and, in some ways, normalized. It raises a harder question for anyone paying attention: if this is infrastructure now, what does that say about the system that made it necessary—and what would it take to build something different?

Hi, I'm Jesse Hirsh.

Welcome to the Future Herd.

What does it mean when a food bank starts to look less like charity

and more like infrastructure, A canary in the coal mine perhaps.

Not a stop gap, not a temporary response something system level, something

that grows as the system itself.

Phrase in this episode, Neil Heddington walks us through that

shift from the inside as CEO of the Daily Bread Food Bank in Toronto.

He's not just responding to demand.

He's mapping it, forecasting it, and in many ways revealing the deeper

architecture of food insecurity In one of the wealthiest cities in the world,

what emerges is rather uncomfortable.

Food banks were never meant to become permanent institutions, and

yet they've evolved into highly sophisticated logic logistical systems,

moving massive volumes of food, coordinating thousands of volunteers

using data and AI to anticipate need.

They're efficient, they're effective, and their very effectiveness risks normalising

the conditions that make them necessary.

But that's only part of the issue because beneath the operations,

beneath the policy failures, there's something else holding it all together.

Culture, not as branding or messaging, but as a lib system of values.

Dignity choice, respect that shape, how people are served, and how people show up

to serve in a context defined by scarcity.

Culture becomes the difference between a transaction and a relationship.

This episode sits in that tension between failure and ingenuity, between

emergency response and a permanent system between logistics and care.

And in that space, a harder question begins to take form.

If food banks have become essential infrastructure, what does that say about

the systems we've built and the ones, quite frankly, that we've abandoned?

Speaking of systems, we've built a reminder about our crowdsourcing

project Commons dot the future herd.ca.

It's a way to add interactivity to this podcast, and it's something

you can do while you're listening, so go check it out right now while

we tune in to our chat with Neil.

Neil, welcome to the Future Herd.

Really glad, really grateful to be here.

So the first question I love to throw out, my guess I'm

calling it my RAR shot test, is, uh, what does the future mean to you?

The future mean to me.

It is a very big question.

Um, and it's very hard, you know, on the one side, uh, data right now, uh,

says things aren't quite as good as they used to be, certainly in the food bank.

Um, now we're serving one in 10 Torontonians.

Gets their food from the daily bread food bank, and that's atrocious.

Um, and, uh, and then you have all these concerns and anxiety about

AI and the future of work and what that's going to, uh, to mean.

And so that's the, uh, that's the, the, the, the dark side.

But we all need sort of.

The Hopi Changey stuff, and on the Hopi Changey side of things, um, I prefer to

live with, uh, optimism and say, you know, is, is, are there, are there opportunities

for us to, uh, to recalibrate so that AI is doing things that, you know, we, uh,

we don't need to spend time doing so that we can spend more time with loved ones.

Maybe I'm being way too optimistic, but, uh, but that's my, uh, my sincere hope.

And we do try to do the.

Hopey feel good stuff here on the future herd, but with the sobriety

of kind to assess the challenges and, and some of the, to use a a, a, a

phrase, I'm fond of the poly crises, uh, uh, that seem to be facing us.

But before we get into that, I do wanna kind of do the

usual biography or lore piece.

Uh, only because I, I like to brag to people that I became a

farmer 'cause I wanted to be on the front lines of climate change.

But it, it strikes me, not only are you now on the front lines of food security.

But you've previously had experience on the front lines of the housing crisis

and, and I suspect that gives you a perspective on food and food security

that is more W 360 or holistic than perhaps some of the other people in

the sector, although I could be wrong.

So give us a sense of kind of your history of leadership, because

I think it runs pretty deep.

And explain a little bit how you ended up.

On on this particular side of the sector or focusing on this

particular collection of issues.

Well, uh, my history is, uh, is one, uh, generally, uh, for

the last 27 years in service, uh, in, in variety of ways in the nonprofit sector.

Um, really two, uh, on the housing side and on the food security side.

And they're, they're, they're, they're.

Co-related.

Um, I think my, uh, you know, not to go way back, but,

It.

I had the awesome privilege of having a grandfather

who is the international leader of the Salvation Army, and that, uh,

infused me a sense of, uh, values and opportunity to be able to give back.

Um, I've had the opportunity to work alongside some extraordinary

people, um, whether volunteers or staff, and, uh, and, and.

You know, that has been, uh, the motivation for me, uh, in, in my

career, the, the vision of, you know, in the case of Habitat for

Humanity, a world without poverty housing in the case of daily bread.

A uh, a city and a country where, uh, where we eliminate food insecurity.

And, and those are, those are, uh.

Aspirational goals and, uh, and visions and, uh, and it's, it's, it's

wonderful to get to work alongside so many volunteers who make that happen.

Today is, uh, a part of international, uh, volunteer week, uh, appreciation week.

And it's, you know, just after this I'll have the opportunity to go and thank,

uh, the volunteers who, who give so, uh, generously to, to this mission.

Right on.

Right on.

And you know, as a quick aside for listeners, if you put uh, Jesse

Hirsch Salvation Army into Google, I did an interview, uh, with one

of the leaders of the organisation.

That's quite fascinating 'cause it is a really interesting, uh,

and, and historical organisation.

That's a very cool.

Cool, uh, connection.

Yeah.

Um, uh, one of the reasons I was eager to talk to you is, you know,

when people talk about agriculture and tea, people talk about AgriFood, Toronto

doesn't always fit into the conversation.

you know, we are starting to look at food security here on the podcast

and talking to different guests.

Uh, Lori Nichol was on the show a couple episodes ago.

I'm not sure our listeners really understand the, the dynamics

of food insecurity in Toronto.

And the, the, the, the, the, the context for the work that your organisation does.

So even though Toronto people might take that stuff for granted,

give us that big picture view.

Gi give us a sense of not just what you and the organisation do, but

the unique challenges of Toronto within the Canadian context.

Sure there's a, there's a lot in there and you know,

a lot of people, you're right, don't think about Toronto in the agricultural

sense, but you know, it, it doesn't take that long to go back in history.

Where Campbell Soup that was made in Toronto, there was

a whole lot of processing.

We used to have canneries here in the city, and we don't have any of that now.

We don't have, uh, uh, really, I don't, I don't believe there's a cannery actually.

A company making cans in the province of Ontario, let alone the country.

I'm not, uh, I'm not entirely sure.

I think we ship our metal down and so we've really, uh, been an integrated

economy and, uh, a orange man to the South has told us, you know,

that is, that is a security risk.

Um, and so we need to, uh, uh, to regroup on, on that front.

Um, that's on the sort of, on the macro sense on the micro, um, what's

going on in terms of food insecurity is, uh, is, is problematic as I said.

So you think about nationally, about 10 million Canadians have some degree of food

insecurity that's outta 40, uh, million.

And so that's, that's a problem.

Uh, the, uh, the, the next side of that would be just in the local

context, it's about 10% who rely on food banks just in Toronto.

Uh, when the pandemic started, I, uh, um, I was called into the, the

church that I attend, and the minister wanted to give a little prayer.

He, he just said he wanted to, to.

You know, this is just when we were, we weren't wearing masks because the, they

were just saved for, for those that, uh, that were, uh, in first responders.

So I was at the church service and he, and he, and he said this prayer, and

before he said it, he said, you know, if the Daily Bread food Bank goes down,

60,000 families won't eat this month.

And let's, let's, uh, give Niels some encouragement.

And that, that didn't gimme encouragement.

It made, it had a giant yoke on me when, when he gave that,

uh, that that commissioning

No

and.

Yeah, exactly.

And, and now that number's not 60,000.

That number is 330,000.

So we've gone from 60,000 to 330,000.

We've gone from spending one and a half million dollars a year on food to some

$29 million a year on, uh, on food.

It has been, uh, a Herculean, uh, effort.

Effort.

The city has come together.

Um, to be able to, uh, to deal with it.

So again, you know, if you, you talk about the difficult news,

I've given you difficult stats.

Well, here's the, the hopeful side of things.

Um, I have hope because the community came together and rallied

and is responding to the Christ.

I have hope because Canadians are talking about a lack of affordable

housing and governments know they now need to respond, uh, to it.

I have hope because we are starting to eliminate the populace with the

fact that if you're on disability in Ontario, you get $1,400 a month.

And you gotta survive on that.

You get only get 700 if you are still on disability, but

you find yourself homeless.

'cause the government says, since you're homeless, you're

not paying rent, therefore we're gonna cut your disability in half.

So we are, uh, telling more and more, uh, Ontario's, more and more Canadians

that there is a fundamental problem.

It's a structural failure, but the good news is, um, there is, there are policy

alternatives to be able to fix that.

Well, and speaking of the policy alternatives there,

there's, there's couple things there.

You said that in, in my own kind, uh, amateur historian

mind, I was kind of feeling that.

The way in which we are connecting the dots presently

is, is kind of unprecedented.

Like we used to treat different policy areas as kind of separate and distinct,

but now it feels as if we're starting to look at policy frameworks about how

these things all connect together in terms of housing and food and access

to employment and community services.

I, I suspect that you have a particular unique.

Perspective that your position affords you both in terms of being at the front line,

right, of seeing kind of the need and the demand grow, to your point of going

from like five figures to over 300,000.

But to your point, I suspect you're starting to see the solutions.

You're starting to see the kind of programmes and policies

that could make an impact, uh.

Please let us see what you see and let us know what you know and help

us infect us with the hope that I, I'm clearly feeling from you.

Well, I, I, I think first of all, there's no magic solution.

Um, it, it will take a toolbox to be able to build this house that

we need to, to build and so on.

Um.

Uh, there are different things that we advocate for.

So we worked very hard to advocate for the Canada disability benefit

that brought in $200 a month more for people on disability.

That makes a profound difference.

That might be one or two less visits to the food bank in any given month.

So income supports are important on the housing side of things.

Um.

Think about, uh, alcohol and tobacco, you pay 30% of that in

a sin tax, gasoline, same thing.

So you're sitting, you're paying 30%, uh, to, to the government in, in taxes.

So, um, you've got that.

And then on the, um, housing front, when you build a new house, you pay about

30% in development charges and tax.

Is, and so it's preposterous to me that we think that we are going to,

uh, push housing forward when we, uh, levy the same tax rate for sins than,

uh, than we do for, for something that is fundamentally a right.

So you have the right to housing, but you're paying 30% tax.

You have a right to food.

There's no tax on food.

You have a right to to healthcare.

There's no tax there.

You have a right to education.

There's no tax there, but housing for some reason, there is.

So, uh, what we're working on right now is we are going to the federal government.

We're saying the people that need it the most could really benefit

if, uh, the rental payments were tax deductible and could they get a a,

a tax credit there that would allow them to target low income families and

make it just about rent, and they'd be able to set something up very quickly.

That would have a profound impact.

Um, I, you know, it's, it's, there's multiple things.

There's inclusionary zoning, there is, uh, there's the

reduction of development charges.

There's, you know, uh, removing the HST on, on housing, and the, the government

is starting to respond to hopefully lower, uh, the, the, the prices.

And you're starting to see, uh, a deescalation in rental prices.

The last thing is how do we fight precarious employment?

Um, so if you think the three things that we gotta deal with, affordable housing,

income supports precarious employment on the third one, it's hard right now,

you know, we're an integrated global economy and so, uh, you know, there are

individuals who come to the food bank.

They've got two or three jobs, uh, they're all part-time, uh, combined.

They have an income that is.

Too rich for any social benefits, but too, uh, too, uh, poor

to be able to, uh, to get by.

So they're making choices on rent or hydro, things like that.

So these are some of the policy areas that, uh, that we work in.

Um, and what is, what's, uh, helpful about it is we're on the front line.

We can say who's coming in, why they're coming in, and what, uh,

uh, they need in order to not have to make use of a charity.

I mean, to your point about the, to, to use the kind of, uh,

pop culture phrase, the rise of the precariat instead of the proletariat.

It, it, it's interesting how that kind of parallels, uh, the workforce and, and even

the kind of culture within agriculture.

'cause there is a similar kind of precarity where people will have multiple

jobs or multiple part-time jobs and still not be able to make ends meet.

I I, I do feel I'm spending a lot of time on the context and, and I, I happens to

be, 'cause I'm a big picture kind of guy.

The, the other piece I wanted to ask you, and this is kind of

within, uh, the context of this larger food insecurity crisis.

The concept of a food desert is something that I think.

Where food researchers kind of heard it, know all about it.

I think there's a lot of people who've never heard that phrase.

And I'm curious how the, the work of the Daily Bread Food Bank correlates to both

the concept and presence, uh, of food deserts, uh, in the city of Toronto.

Well, um, you know, food deserts were, uh, an area, you know,

it's can, or do you have a grocery store that you can purchase from within, uh,

sort of walking or, or easy bus access.

Um, and that was certainly a, a real challenge for a

lot of, uh, of, of Toronto.

Um, that, that has subsequently changed.

Um, I would say that Toronto is a city now where there really aren't food

deserts, but there's a lot of people that can't afford to go to the grocery store.

Um, sadly, we now serve the Daily Bread, serves about 200 food programmes

all across the city of Toronto.

You can walk to a food bank now, um, pretty well anywhere

in the city of Toronto.

And, uh, and that is, uh, that is telling and it's, uh, shameful.

Hello.

Shameful in the sense that the presence of hunger is shameful, but without being, you

know, uh, what's the word I'm looking for?

Gleeful in the face of tragedy.

is nonetheless impressive.

And, and I say this in the sense that, you know, I, I lived in Toronto between

the early eighties and the late 2010s, the extent to which social programmes

and community support services have become part of the city fabric.

It changed over my lifetime.

can you give us a sense of the diversity or the way in which

all those kind of touch points or community kind of presence, the role

that it plays in those communities?

Because I, I agree.

It's shameful that it exists, but at the same time, you have to acknowledge

the gratitude to have that kind of infrastructure available to people.

Yeah, I, it, it so it, you're, you're right.

And I should have, should have clarified that it really, um, it, it, it is

a, um, it, it's atrocious that we have people who can't afford to buy

food, um, in a, in a country as that is, uh, has the wealth that we have.

Um.

And, and so there is a, a real challenge when somebody crosses

the threshold of a doorway of a food bank for the very first time.

You know, that, that there is, there is shame often attached to, uh, to that

and, uh, um, and we do our utmost to be able to register them and get them in,

uh, in the most low barrier way so that they, uh, they know that they're doing

the right thing for their family and that it is, and that they're not alone.

And they're not alone.

Uh, you know, I, I remember walking the, the lineup, uh, recently where,

where I saw a, uh, a person that I knew that worked at, uh, one of the

media outlets in Toronto and, uh, and we, we, we said hello and she was, uh.

You, you know, I think she, she immediately said, well, this

is the reason I need to go.

And she gave some rationale.

And the rationale that she gave was, she talked about what her,

her income was, and it was about 50,000, just over $50,000 a year.

And you think 50,000.

Why are they going to a food bank?

Well, here's her math.

She's got two kids.

She pays about $2,100 in rent.

So after fi, uh, 50,000 after taxes, you're 36, pay for your rent,

and you, it works out to roughly $6,000 that you have for the year.

$500 a month to be able to pay for food, uh, clothing and transportation.

And, uh, the average Canadian eats about $300 a month in food.

So she's underwater with her two kids right away.

So there is somebody who's done everything right.

They went to school, they got a job, they're working hard, they should

be able to live the Canadian dream, but they can't, um, because you

know what the rental payments are versus the income that they've got.

And this is where, not to go on a tangent, but it's kind of relevant.

This is where I'm a bit of a radical in that I don't see

any problems with free food.

This.

Same way.

I don't see any problems with people paying for food, I wish

we could do something about that stigma, about that shame.

'cause I agree with you, $50,000 in Toronto is pretty

tight, like the cost of living.

Uh uh, not just of Toronto, of a lot of Canadian cities.

Uh, is is incredibly difficult for people to manage and food should

not be part of that equation, right?

They should not have to worry about their nutrition so they can have the

energy and focus to do those things.

We could go on and on about that, where we would both be on the same page.

I, I'm curious to get into the organisation and, and I do

want, I don't want to get too much into the nuts and bolts.

But I suspect a lot of people, myself included, have some cliches about

the way food banks work or that the way an organisation like the

Daily Bread Food Bank would work.

are some of the strengths?

What are some of the pain points?

Well, how, how?

How does a contemporary food bank or food bank umbrella

organisation, how does it function?

And I guess to lead you in a direction, what are the kind of

resources that you guys require that we should be championing?

Both on a policy level or just on a cultural level?

Okay, so lots in there.

So what we do is we try to make sure that everybody who comes to the food bank gets

three days worth of food once a week.

So maximum you can come is once per week, uh, and you can

get three days worth of food.

And we do it in each of the food, food groups.

And so how it works behind the scenes is we've gotta forecast about six weeks

out, uh, every single uh, uh, visit to every single food bank across the city.

And then we have to disperse roughly just under a million pounds of food per week.

That's how much food is going, coming in and going outta the Daily Bread food bank.

And we become more and more sophisticated with that.

Uh, we use AI to, uh, to help us in that.

And we start purchasing from multiple countries, uh, you know, foods that

you can't buy here in Canada and, uh, and, and starting to really lower the,

uh, the pricing on, on these things.

So, uh, that is, uh, uh, the sort of the logistics and it all ends up on

shelves all across the city of Toronto.

Somebody comes in.

They're, say they're a family of four, they get 400 points and they

shop for the food that they need.

No longer is the day where you, you know, here's a box of food.

And that's, I hope you enjoy it because it's inefficient.

It's less, uh, because I don't know about you, but I don't buy, like that

box of food is gonna have macaroni and cheese, it's gonna have peanut

butter, it's gonna have two and a. And are you going to have a jar of peanut

butter every single week in Uh, no.

No.

And so this, uh, shopping actually allows people to, uh, to, to be a lot more

rationed on the food that they take.

So, um, so that's how, how it works on that front.

As I mentioned earlier, we used to spend a million and a half dollars a year on food.

Now it's $29 million.

Um, it's a sophisticated supply chain, uh, here and anybody listening,

anybody watching this, uh, please.

When, if you're in Toronto, come by, uh, the Daily Bread Food

Bank, we'll give you a tour.

We're very friendly and we'd love to, uh, to show you how we

logistically make this all happen.

And, and I, I wanna come back to the logistics, but you know, you, you

talked about the modelling, the AI side.

I mean, I'm curious, just on a metaphorical level, how do you

deal with that supply and demand?

Because.

To your point, you're dealing with a very large user base and you know, planning six

weeks ahead, while it sounds like not a lot of time, that is a lot of complexity,

do you manage that supply and demand?

Because clearly the, the demand is not necessarily stable.

It could be growing, and that makes then securing the supply.

To your point of having, let's say three, you know, meals a week, one

visit, like how do you manage that?

How do you project that and is

Yeah.

source of stress or is that something you guys feel

that you're getting better at?

We're getting better at it.

We're pretty good about it.

I would say we, um, uh, we're usually within one to 2% of

forecasted, uh, client visits.

Um, so that, uh, that part is good, but do we stress about it?

Absolutely.

Um, and here's the challenge that we also have.

You know, we have, uh, generous donors like Etel Pasta.

They, they, uh, huge amount of pasta that they give to the daily bread food bank.

It with with love.

They will send an email saying, on in four days we'd like to send you a tractor.

Trail load worth past.

And we're, and we'll be like, absolutely.

That's incredible.

And we have to say yes.

Um, and we always say yes.

Um, but that might have screwed up all of our supply chain work that we were

doing six, six, uh, six weeks ago.

So we're definitely gonna say yes to the donation, we're gonna make it happen,

but it's, it's much more challenging.

A lot of people think that the, for the not-for-profit sector is a bunch of, you

know, Mo Moo wearing left wing granola eating, uh, dream Catcher kind of.

Uh, folks, and it's, and it's it, yes, we're visionary, but at the same time, we

have to be more businessy than business.

Us because we've gotta figure out, um, things that business doesn't normally do.

The cost of goods sold, you buy from your vendors and you, and

you make the good and you sell it.

Um, we have to do all of that.

Plus we have to deal with the, uh, the, the, um, massive changes that

where a supplier is saying, here's a bunch of free stuff that doesn't

happen in the for-profit, uh, side.

And you gotta say yes to it.

So we, in the not-for-profit sector, you really do have to

have a, a strong business acumen.

And because you're, you're working to do more with less in a much

more transparent, uh, way with, uh, additional governance and oversight.

And to your point, the margin of error is even smaller, right?

So where they've got some room to fail in ways that, you know, not only for

you as failure have direct human cost, but I think the, uh, expectations

placed on nonprofits and charities do tend to be much higher, uh, than the

expectations placed on the private sector.

I, I, I wanna dig a little deeper onto the logistics side.

Only because, uh, I, I, correct me if I'm wrong, but it it, I assume that what

you've developed is kind of unique, and I don't mean unique necessarily within

the AgriFood sector, but to your point, you're more of a social enterprise

than you are a private enterprise.

So give me a sense of not just the expertise in logistics that you guys

have had to develop, but what that.

Then makes possible right in, in, in, because you are the Toronto Food

Bank and not the North Bay Food Bank.

I I. In terms of, you know, what that logistics, what that capacity

then allows you guys to do as a network, as an organisation, I.

Yeah, it's, uh, um, so we are part of, uh, an association.

Um, so there are, there's the Food Bank of Calgary and of Vancouver, of Montreal.

And so we will share a lot of information so that we're not,

uh, reinventing the wheel.

There's no competition there, and that has been very, very useful.

We also, um, quite frankly, um, we hire some really outstanding individuals.

The, the woman who heads up our, our operations, our VP of operations, Heather

Valentino, she is, she's, she's wonderful.

She's, she's come from craft and from Maple Leaf, and she has,

uh, taken that business acumen.

Uh, she is a, I don't know.

Uh, what level of, um, of, uh, of six Sigma?

She is probably some ninja warrior, um, level, and that she just knows, um,

that, uh, how to lean out the system brilliantly and, uh, um, do it in a way

that volunteers want to be part of it.

Here's another peculiarity of what we do.

If you think about like coming in and sorting food, this

food's been donated to us.

We gotta sort it.

You know, we should have conveyor belts here, uh, that, that just, you know, pack

everything and move, move things around.

But we don't do that.

Um, and we do a less efficient, uh, mechanism.

The reason we charge companies to come in right now, there's a company

here that's paying us some $20,000 for the privilege of doing our work.

So our revenue source is a labour inefficiency.

That doesn't make any sense at all.

Um, and so, uh, you know, we, we have these peculiarities.

We, we learn from, from what works and doesn't work.

We share it across the province, we share it across the country,

and we learn from, from our, our counterparts right across Canada.

When you say it doesn't make sense, you mean it doesn't make

sense from a larger optimization, but it

Yeah.

sense from a relationship and a revenue generating perspective?

Yeah, it, it makes complete sense for us.

But if, if we were a for-profit company, we'd lean it out and we

would conveyor ba, well conveyor belt out the, uh, the packaged goods

Yeah.

instead, you know, we have many of the same systems, but

they, there's a lot of hands that are moving boxes around that you would say,

Hey, we could get rid of, you know, 90% of the labour force in this operation.

And if you did that, then we wouldn't have any money for the food.

Well, and that kind of opens the question 'cause you alluded

to the kinda, I, I think you might've used the word volunteer experience.

But one assumes that the people who are attracted, who are volunteering are

doing so more than just for the reason of they've got time on their hands.

Give me a sense of what the culture that are either exists because it does, or

that you guys deliberately cultivate.

To, you know, create where in an enterprise there'd be a

culture, maybe 'cause people are showing up for a paycheck.

But in a social enterprise there's different motivations and there's

different desires in terms of what they get back from the organisation.

You're entirely right.

Um, culture is the most important thing that I work on every single.

Day at this organisation.

Um, without doubt, it is culture, culture, culture, um, it's culture,

then it's strategy, then it's structure.

And so what is that culture that we, uh, manifest here?

Well, for staff, I wanna make sure every staff can say, I have

the tools, the autonomy, and the inspiration to do my job.

So they, that, those are the three things we're, we're going for

there and for the, uh, for the, the paid and unpaid staff as a whole.

I would say we take the mission seriously and nod ourselves.

It is a really fun place to work.

It is.

Um, if you were to go out into that production hall right now,

where that company is, there's probably seventies pop music on.

If you go into our warehouse, there's some Nigerian rap I think that will,

will, would be, uh, would be playing.

And then if you went into the kitchen, they're, they're sort of like a,

a, a much more heavy rock kind of.

Uh, and so they all have their own music that's going on there and

jazz in, in the actual food bank.

And so, um, we make it a place where, um, you want to be, um,

where you know you're appreciated.

Um, and, uh, as a result, we have almost no turnover of staff.

Um, people wanna be here.

Well, and to that point, you know, you, you kind of answered it, but

I wouldn't mind you elaborating a little.

think that there are a lot of leaders who either don't appreciate culture

or, or don't value culture, to your point, as part of their mandate, as a

leader, as part of their focus of what they want to be institutionalising.

What's your argument?

What would you say either to other leaders or even to your stakeholders who

might say, you know, Neil, why are you prioritising culture, uh, above and beyond

some of your other responsibilities?

Uh, I, I, I don't, I think it'd be hard to find somebody

who doesn't think that the CEO's job is to instil a, a, a, a, a good culture

for the organisation that they run.

Um, but you know, my arguments for it would simply be

it's in your best interest.

Um, when somebody wants to be there, they, uh, they, they, they, they do

that job with, uh, with excellence.

Um, when somebody is valued.

Um, there is, there is a sense of, uh, uh, collegiality that, um,

is, is is incredibly important.

And, um, so, uh, so it's, it's, I I want people to want to be here.

People need to get it, want it, and have the capacity to do their job.

And, uh, and I'm gonna make sure that they have all the, I'm gonna make sure

they have the three things, the tools, the autonomy, and the, the inspiration.

And then, uh, and then on that autonomy, we let them fly.

And, um, and so it is, it costs us a lot less because we have a lot less turnover.

Um, we, it allows us to attract great people.

Um, that's another thing.

You know, we posted for a board position, so we had two board positions last year.

Um, and so these are unpaid positions to be on our board of directors.

Uh, we did the posting for, let's call it three, four weeks.

And there were 300 applications, qualified applications for,

for the, uh, for the position.

And that speaks volumes to people wanting to be here.

And so when, when you are that magnet.

Good things happen.

So what has happened because of a good culture, we've gone from $8

million a year in revenue to $42 million a year in, uh, in revenue.

It has been, uh, solid, good growth and, uh, uh, the, the risk associated

with a toxic culture, I just think is far too great, um, to, uh, to, to

avoid not putting it as, as precedent.

And, and this is where, uh, you know, to the part of the reason I

asked your, uh, asked the question the way I did about culture is I think you

are kind of taking your own exceptionality for granted in that, you know, uh.

Toxic cultures are quite pervasive, uh, right now, uh, in our organisations,

uh, in, in our broader economy.

And there are very few leaders with the courage and leadership that you

have, to not only not want them, but to recognise the burden and dysfunction

they, uh, a place upon the organisation.

And there's a reason why I keep evoking the phrase social enterprise because

I do think that you guys legitimately belong in the category of enterprise.

Not just because you have the size and the capability, but to your point

about the five sigmas or whatever.

You, you, you are achieving a level of excellence that we often

just associate with enterprises.

Yet at the same time you use the word, uh, which I wanna emphasise 'cause it's

a word I think about a lot autonomy.

There are very few enterprises who even understand what autonomy is,

let alone encourage their staff or their leaders to embrace autonomy.

is it so important to you and, and what has been the rewards or the payoffs,

uh, for embracing such an approach?

There's study after study that tells you that when people are

under stress, they make bad decisions.

Um, so what do you do as, as a, as a boss?

You, uh, as a, as an employer, you remove as much stress as you

possibly can on your workforce.

So when you do that, people make better decisions and they are more productive.

And it's as simple as that.

It doesn't have to be, uh, over, uh, over complicated.

And so that has been, uh, my primary function is to make sure that this

is a culture where people want to be.

And again, to your credit, that requires a, a lot of

confidence, a, a certain level of self-esteem that not all leaders have.

So I appreciate that.

And then let me follow that up with a much more difficult question, uh, to put you

in a more awkward or flatfooted position.

What if, do you think the rest of us are missing?

Right.

What is it like a lot of what we've talked about so far, while maybe not familiar

to outsiders, I think people within the sector kind of understand the value of,

and that's partly why I was getting into the autonomy piece and the culture piece.

'cause I do think there are segments that don't appreciate that.

But what are the pieces that maybe you take for granted or maybe that you're

really passionate about, but you feel the rest of society is kind of clueless about?

Again, it's a tough question to kind of catch you off guard, but I'm really

trying to draw out that piece of wisdom, that thing that you see that

you wish the rest of us could see that would either make your job easier.

on a broader social level would really start to reverse the, the food

insecurity crisis that we're witnessing.

Oh man.

Like there's so many questions within that, like that's, that's almost not fair.

Um, so,

I don't play fair.

so I'm going to, I'm going to, I'll, I'll parse it out

first on the leadership side of things.

Um, leadership can be incredibly lonely.

Um, it is, you know, you as CEO, you don't have a peer.

The board of chair is not your peer.

He's represents the boss.

And anybody who's a staff member is, is, you know, theoretically reporting up.

So, being a leader can be incredibly lonely.

More than that.

A leader always has to be rowing in the opposite direction of the team.

So when they're chaotic, you are calm.

When they are calm, you are the one stirring things up.

And so, uh, so that makes that loneliness even even greater.

So you do need to, um, have, uh, yes, a, a sense of, of confidence about that,

but you get that confidence, I would argue, by hiring people better than you.

I can, you know, if, if you play tennis, you should never play tennis

with somebody, uh, who's not as good.

Or you always play tennis with somebody better, uh, if you want to get better.

And so I can, uh, say with full confidence, every single one of the

leadership team does their functional area far better than I could ever do.

And, uh, and so that's an enormous burden lifted from me.

Right.

So now I've got, uh, I've, I've.

Uh, you know, I've, I've got this lonely position.

Uh, I've got the stressor and that burden, but it's reduced

because I'm playing tennis with people better than, uh, than me.

So that's on the leadership side of things.

And then on the, what don't people get right now about food insecurity?

Um, what they don't get is how costly.

Poverty is, there was a study in 2019 that showed that, uh, poverty costs about $30

billion in Ontario alone per year, uh, in Ontario, alone about $1.70, 1.7 million,

sorry, $1.7 billion in the justice system, about $5 billion in healthcare

costs directly attributable to poverty.

So.

So we have as Canadians a choice of, uh, of addressing poverty upstream by

building affordable housing, by building cooperatives, by building social housing,

and making sure that people's stress in life is reduced because they can afford

to live and thrive in their community.

Um, and as a result, it will actually increase, uh, what we have to spend

on debt reduction on, uh, other priorities that the government,

uh, might have poverty's expense.

And then the last part is poverty's expensive on our souls.

It is incredibly expensive to, uh, like, think about every time you walk

down the street and you see a, a, a person who's unhoused at the time,

and, you know, do I talk to them?

Do I not?

Um, how are they doing?

They've been there month after month, year after year.

And, and it, it, it can be, uh, as, as taxing and as horrific it is for

that person living that experience.

It's also traumatic for the, the child that walks by and says,

what, what, what's going on there?

And so there is a, um, uh, a real opportunity to reduce our government

spend by doing the right moral thing and going upstream in poverty.

Right on.

Now, almost at the end, uh, of what has been a wonderful episode, and I, I, I

kind of have to ask this next question.

I'm not sure if you feel it will be tangential or still within the kind of

wheelhouse of what we've been discussing.

But there's lots of talk these days about municipal grocery stores

and certainly the city of Toronto

Yeah.

actively exploring it.

Uh, what are your thoughts both on the concept but also

the impact that it could have?

Well, I'll say that, um, uh, as it is right now,

I, I, I'm not in, in favour of them.

Um, and I've gotta preface that by saying I appreciate so much a city

council that declared a state of emergency when it came to food insecurity

That's willing to try anything.

But the try anything means you do your homework and so let's, let's just do

the homework really quickly together.

You spend about $300 a month in groceries, so the grocery stores get a profit of

about 2.5 to 4%, so that if the city came in and said, we're gonna do it

without profit, and they were able to deliver, that'll be about $12 for you.

But here's the big, but that makes an a wild and wrong assumption that

the city could operate as efficiently as Loblaws and that the city could

buy food as cheaply as Loblaws.

So that ain't gonna happen.

So then you, then the question becomes, how much of a subsidy

should the city be putting in?

So if they want to help you, the, and is it 25?

Is it 50?

Dollars per, per month.

Now, if you do $50 per month and you just use the people that go to

the food bank, that would cost about $15 million per month, uh, for the

city to give that kind, that $50 subsidy to each person's going there.

And then you'd have questions about, well, could anybody shop there?

And all that sort of stuff.

So, um.

You know, it, where I think the city can be most effective is, uh, providing land

for development for affordable housing.

They can reduce development charges.

They can, uh, provide the student nutrition programme for breakfast

and in schools, uh, school boards, uh, across the city of, uh, Toronto.

So I don't think, uh, city run grocery stores, uh, are anything

other than a fleeting headline.

Um, but here's the, the thing.

Thank you to the city for, for bringing it up.

As, as, as an idea.

Daily Bread will do the homework and the math, um, to find out whether

or not the math, maths or not.

And if it doesn't, don't do it because there's enormous tail

risk if you do it and it fails.

So let's, let's play that one through.

So they put the four, the four stores out there, that's what they're

looking at right now, and they fail.

Now, um, Joe Average walking down the street is gonna say, yeah, the

government tried to do something, the government can't do it, and it'll affect

all other progressive social policies.

And so don't do something that you know is outside your lane that you,

you know, uh, does not necessarily have that opportunity for success.

Us.

Well, and you know, to your larger point, thought of this

question when we were talking about the logistics and infrastructure.

'cause you.

Clearly understand some of the difficulties and the

pain points in managing that.

And to your larger point that it's not as if the, a startup from the public

sector is gonna beat Loblaws at their own game without heavy subsidies.

I fully agree that the danger here is when they mess it up, not so much

when they're presenting the idea.

One last question before we get to the closer.

Uh.

How, how do you guys plan to, uh, capitalise on this larger

awareness around food security?

Because this kind of goes back to our larger question about shame.

That on the one hand, yes, food insecurity is getting worse, and that's

putting a lot of stress on people.

But I do see the silver lining that more and more people are upset about

these issues and perhaps more mobilised to look at the, uh, adjacent policy

areas that you've been bringing up to go to end on the hope No.

What do you think the opportunity is now for, for you as a leader

and for your organisation?

You are entirely right.

And this is, I'm, I'm glad that we're ending on, on this, um, not

the question two, two questions ago.

That was a hard one.

Um, the, uh, on the, on this point, um.

We have the power to change policy.

So we got some 280,000 letters sent to Christian Freeland to get

the Canada disability benefit.

Why?

Because Trians and Canadians saw that, uh, it was, it was fundamentally wrong

that anybody should, uh, should be, uh, on disability and not be able

to afford their, their groceries.

And so there was pressure put on.

So we will leverage the media, uh, that, uh, that is out

there podcasts, whether it.

So traditional or, or, or, uh, social, no matter what it is, we're gonna

leverage that to, uh, to infuse a sense of activism that allows us

to be able to have conversations.

Based on evidence and based on good data to be able to provide policy solutions.

Because, you know, I work with all politicians and I can tell you, and I'm

not affiliated with any of them, I can tell you that it doesn't matter if it's,

you know, and like left centre, right?

Um, all of them, whether they like to em, admit it or not, uh, of the other

parties, all of them want a candidate where everybody can thrive and commute in.

They just have different ways of getting there.

And so we're gonna make sure that based on the government that's in place and

their, their priorities that we provide them the policy alternatives that will,

uh, make sure that, uh, we can all thrive.

Right on.

So we are at a time, uh, the last part of every episode is the shout outs, and

this is really meant to be a kind of gut feeling where I. to you, Hey Neil,

who are the leaders that you look up to?

Who are the people that you either look for inspiration or

that we should be looking to?

And it's meant to be a spontaneous answer.

I'm not looking for an Academy Awards

Yeah.

speech or anything.

Just comes to mind.

All right.

Well, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna give you a few.

Um, so the past leaders that I look up to and I got to be mentored by, would

certainly be President Jimmy Carter.

Um.

Ed Clark, the, uh, former CEO of, uh, of TD Bank, he's still, still, uh, living.

I made it sound like a pass.

Um, and the founder of Habitat for Humanity, Millard Fuller, they're,

those are incredible, uh, leaders who, uh, who, who grew their,

their organisations or in politics.

And they did it with a sense of value, um, and, uh, hard work.

And then current leaders, um, you know, I, uh, I. I, as I, I'm heading

right now to thank volunteers, um, and those volunteers are assembled

and brought together by, by Jeffrey Wong and his team here at Daily Bread.

And I'm gonna give him a shout out because in this international, uh, week

of volunteers, um, uh, corralling that group, inspiring that group, that's, uh,

that's a, a mighty task that Jeff has.

So he's getting my shift.

Right on.

Right on.

Well done.

Well, thank you, Neil.

This has been fantastic and if anything has really helped me appreciate the.

Expertise that social enterprises like the Toronto Daily Bread, food bank, and

leaders like yourself are developing.

If only 'cause you know, to your point about the association that you're in.

So we can spread and cross pollinate that knowledge as widely as possible.

So thanks again for a fantastic conversation.

Really appreciate it.

Thank you so much.

It is certainly tempting to admire the system after

a conversation like that and admire a leader like Neil and the resilience

and capacity that he brings to the heroic challenge of feeding the hungry,

uh, certainly in a city like Toronto.

But we can't stop there because what Neil and his team have built is by

any operational measure extraordinary.

The scale, the coordination, the ability to anticipate, need, and respond to it.

It's a model many institutions would struggle to match.

Uh, you can see why food banks have become indispensable, but that's

not the point that we should be leaving this conversation with.

The deeper takeaway is harder to sit with.

The more effective this infrastructure becomes, the easier it is for

broader systems to lean on it, to defer responsibility, to accept

that this is how things work now, and yet inside that reality, there

is a different kind of signal.

Culture, doing real work, heavy lifting, dignity preserved

through design, not intention.

Volunteers and staff acting with a shared sense of purpose that holds

the whole kitten caboodle together.

A system that even under pressure insists on treating people as

participants, not problems.

Imagine if we had a democracy like that, hey.

So the question isn't whether food banks should exist.

They already do.

They're embedded, evolving, and in many ways leading the question is

what we choose to learn from them.

Do we treat this as a permanent workaround or do we recognise it as a map?

One that shows us exactly where our policies, our markets, and

our assumptions are breaking down.

Because if this is infrastructure now, then it's telling us something

not just about food, but about how we care for each other at scale.

And that is fundamentally the ideology of the future herd.

We gotta care for each other.

Hey, alright, until next time, we'll see you soon.